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Wednesday 4 November 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.
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Heroes
Gilgamesh may be the first named hero in what we think of as the Western World. Like him, most heroes in the cultures of the West are passionate, often rebellious, defenders of and bringers of relief to their homelands, and until perhaps Boudicca (floruit 60-61 CE) always male. They often descended from Gods (see Gods and Demons) but are distinct from them, like Hercules; even Prometheus, the paradigm culture hero in the Western tradition, is not a ...
Stern, Dave
(1958- ) US author almost exclusively as a contributor of Ties to various series universes, including some associated with Marvel Comics and Star Trek, the first of these being Dr Bones #5: Nightmare World (1989), part of a Shared World series about the eponymous archaeologist/adventurer in space, clearly influenced by Stephen ...
Winters, Ben H
(1976- ) US playwright, journalist and author whose first books – including The Jewish Comedy Thesaurus: 3,102 Quips, Quotes, and Kvetches (2007) and the Worst-Case Scenario series of spoofs with David Borgenicht and Robin Epstein – were comic nonfiction. He is of sf interest for two series. His contributions to his publisher's Quirk Classics sequence are Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (2009) with Jane Austen ...
Biagi, L D
Working name of US author Lottie Biagi (circa 1872-? ); the surname is that of her first husband (married circa 1890), and she later became Lottie F Ambrose on her second marriage in 1912. Her Two Heroes and a Violin: An Extravaganza (1899) is a supernatural fiction. The protagonist of her sf novel The Centaurians (1911) as Biagi travels with his Scientist friend in a torpedo-like ship of the latter's ...
Mollmann, Steve
(1985- ) US author to date exclusively associated with the Star Trek universe as an author of Ties, beginning with "The Future Begins" with Michael Schuster in What's Past (anth 2006) edited by its various contributors; his first full novel, Star Trek: A Choice of Catastrophes (2010) with Michael Schuster, edges into ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book ...