The SF Encyclopedia editors have long wanted to add a little tasty eye candy to this website's massive textual presentation. Now at last we have a new page for this purpose,

Ray Harryhausen, one of the pioneering greats of sf/fantasy film effects -- he was particularly famed for his work in stop-motion animation -- died in Lond

EightSquaredCon, the 64th British Eastercon, is currently taking place in Bradford, Yorkshire. SF Encylopedia editors

Richard E Geis, novelist and publisher of the fanzine Psychotic and the semiprozine The Four Million Words

January 21, 2013

As subtly hinted in the headline, the SF Encyclopedia site update of 21 January 2013 took us comfortably past 4,000,000 words of text. It's tempting to produce a ta

Gerry Anderson, creator of the much-loved Thunderbirds and other popular children's sf television serie

The Strugatski or Strugatsky brothers, Arkady and Boris in collaboration, were Russia's best-known and most-translated sf authors. Bot

Today, 8 November 2012, the SF Encyclopedia reached and passed the 3.8 million word mark. The 3,800,000th word was written by Contributing Editor Gary Westfahl, who

Alan Hunter, who died on 1 August 2012 after a long illness, was not only a fine artist but a generous man who drew covers and interiors for very ma

Now we have photographs of them all, we've added a discreet page for the Encyclopedia's 2012 awards. Normal modesty wil

The SF Encyclopedia team is enormously thrilled to have been voted the Hugo Award for Best Related work at the 2012 ceremony during the Chicago Worldcon on 2 September. Gra

Today it was confirmed that the unopposed London bid for the 72nd World SF Convention in 2014 was, as expected, successful in the site selection voting at the Chicago Worldcon.

Several long-planned SF Encyclopedia website improvements went live on 21 August 2012. These include:

• A new "widget" (as the technical people call it) in the ri

There is general mourning in sf circles for the loss of Harry Harrison, who died on 15 August (circa 1am) in the East Sussex nur

Now it can be revealed, with 2012 Hugo voting safely closed: we were encouraged to provide some exclusive extras for the Chicon Hugo Voter Packet, and here they a

Sad to record the death of Gore Vidal (1925-2012) on 31 July at the age of 86. A gifted mainstream novelist, he used sf and fantasy devices

Another small milestone: the editors are modestly pleased that the latest SF Encyclopedia site update has taken us past 3.6 million words.

Unfortunately t

Ray Bradbury, one of the best-known sf and fantasy authors in the world, died in Los Angeles on the morning of 6 June 2012. The Martian Chronicles (coll of linked stories 1950) is one of the great mythmaking works of sf. Bradbury's

Leo Dillon, who with his wife and collaborator Diane Dillon formed a remarkable sf/fantasy artistic team, died on 26 May; Diane Dillon survives him.

Regular SF Encyclopedia updates continue; there is still much work to be done. The 2 May presentation of the Arthur C Clarke Award to The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers naturally led to a

Ernest Callenbach, author of Ecotopia, died on 16 April.

We are, of course, deeply thrilled to be included in the 2012 Hugo shortlist, Best Related Book category. The day after the Hugo list was announced, the SFE won the BSFA Award

Peter Phillips, author of the pioneering Dream Hacking story "Dreams Are Secred", died on 28 March.

Christine Brooke-Rose, the critic and experimental novelist who wrote several unusual works of sf, died on 21 March aged 89.

M A R Barker (Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker), an important role playing game designer who created the world of Tékumel, died on 16 March.

Jean Giraud, the major French sf/fantasy artist who also published as Moebius, died on 10 March.

John Christopher -- known to friends by his real name Sam Youd -- died on 3 February at the age of 89. His books include the classic disaster novel The Death of Grass (1956; vt No Blade of Grass 1957)

Ardath Mayhar died on 1 February 2012, as reported here.

Her SFE entry has been slightly updated.

The official author website is

We are very pleased (and also surprised, since this is still a work in progress) that the SF Encyclopedia has been shortlisted in the Best Nonfiction category of the British SF Association Awards for 2011 work.

Other contenders in the same category include works by our Co

It's now three months since the SF Encyclopedia site was launched. We, the editors, and the website experts at STEEL have made a great many changes since October 2011, adding new material, correcting text errors and omissions, and fixing problems with the site.

The SFE no

Sadly, the authors T J Bass and Russell Hoban (of Riddley Walker fame) both died on 13 December 2011. 

Their entries will be updated as soon as possible. (Now done.)

You can read more at t

On October 3rd, the beta text of the third edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction went live.

To answer some Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: What exactly is a beta text?

In this context, it means a text of the SFE that isn't yet complete. W