SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 28 October 2026
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.
Site updated on 26 October 2026
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Hamilton, Cicely
Pseudonym under which UK playwright, actor, Feminist and author Mary Cicely Hammill (1872-1952) published all her adult work, though her children's fiction, including some stories for the Sexton Blake series, was written as by Scott Rae and by Max Hamilton. Her best-known plays are eloquently suffragist; they include How the Vote Was Won (1908 chap; first performed 1909) with Christopher St John (1871-1960) (who had decades previously abandoned ...
Strahan, Jonathan
(1964- ) Irish-born anthologist, reviewer, broadcaster and editor, in Australia from 1968. He first became known to the sf field in 1990 as co-founder of the Australian sf journal Eidolon, with which he was involved until 1999 as co-editor and publisher. His long association with Locus as editor and contributor began in 1997, though he returned to Australia in 1999; he was most active as a reviewer for the journal ...
Gerrare, Wirt
Pseudonym of UK weapons expert, journalist and author William Oliver Greener (1862-1935) for most of his work, both fiction and nonfiction, though at least one thriller appeared under his real name. His first novel of genre interest, Rufin's Legacy: A Theosophical Romance (1892), features a Russian female spy who uses her astral body nefariously; Phantasms: Original Stories Illustrating Posthumous Personality and Character (coll 1895) assembles fantasies featuring ...
James, P D
(1920-2014) UK civil servant and author whose detective novels, beginning with Cover Her Face (1962) and generally featuring Commander Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard, comprise a literate, conservative, elegiac but tough-minded defence of traditional English civility, a vision darkened by the fact that the austere, deeply intelligent Dalgliesh is agnostic, and the England he defends is self-damaging. The hints of a high-tech sabotage of a coastal nuclear plant in ...
Boorman, John
(1933- ) UK film director, famous for such movies as Point Blank (1967) and Deliverance (1972), who novelized his own Zardoz (1974) as Zardoz (1974) with Bill Stair. As a director he has also ventured into fantasy with Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and the Arthurian Excalibur (1981). The Tailor of Panama (2001), based on ...
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 ...
