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Sunday 7 December 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for what we mean by Science Fiction; here for the masthead; here for some Statistics; here for the Acknowledgments; here for the FAQ; here for advice on citations. Find entries via the search box above (more details here) or browse the menu categories in the grey bar at the top of this page.
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
O'Brien, David Wright
(1918-1944) US author whose first story was "Truth is a Plague!" (February 1940 Amazing). A nephew of Farnsworth Wright, he published almost entirely for the Ziff-Davis magazines Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures from early 1940; there were about forty stories and novels under his own name plus others under various ...
Toynbee, Polly
(1946- ) UK journalist and author; she is of the fourth generation of Toynbees to be involved in literature. Leftovers (1966) depicts with feeble verve the mixed destinies of a group of youths in a deserted London, survivors of an obscurely described poisonous gas (see Poison) (or possibly a neutron bomb) which has destroyed the rest of humanity. There are some moments with some ...
Brown, Wenzell
(1911-1981) US author, mostly of mysteries, who published some sf in magazines, beginning with "Murderer's Chain" for Fantastic Universe, March 1960. His one sf novel, Possess and Conquer (1975), is a modestly competent tale of Paranoia linked to the threat of an alien Invasion. [JC]
White, Skyler
Working name of US author (1967- ), whose surname is White and who describes the Skyler as a nickname; her first novel, And Falling, Fly (2010), is a supernatural romance set with some Equipoisal skill in a Steampunk world. Her second, In Dreams Begin (2010), is a Timeslip tale whose protagonist becomes involved with William Butler ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...