SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 12 September 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 7 September 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Payne, Paul L
(1921-1992) US editor and author, who edited Planet Stories between 1946 and 1950, and who published some Space Operas, notably The Cructars Are Coming (Summer 1952 Two Complete Science-Adventure Books; 2008 ebook), in which Martians (see Mars) are wrongly accused of causing mass deaths on Earth. [JC]
Stephens, Ann Sophia
(1810-1886) American author, who sometimes wrote as Mrs Ann S Stephens, and whose Malaeska: The Indian Wife of the White Hunter (February-April 1839 Ladies' Companion; 1860), was Number One in the Beadle's Dime Novels series, and was therefore the first dime novel (see Dime Novel SF). Also printed in that series, Mahaska: The Indian Princess: A Tale of the Six Nations (1863) and its sequel The Indian Queen ...
Strickland, A W
(? - ) US author and Cinema enthusiast who began to publish work of genre interest with A Collection of Great Science Fiction Films (1979). His second book was A Reference Guide to American Science Fiction Films, Volume 1 (1981) with Forrest J Ackerman; further volumes in this projected series did not appear. [DRL]
Pullman, Philip
(1946- ) UK author, mostly of books for children and the Young Adult market, and mostly fantasy; his first novel, however, The Haunted Storm (1972) as Philip N Pullman, is a nonfantastic Bildungsroman for adults, though its climax in a devastated Mithraic temple hints at the shape of future work. In his second, Galatea (1978), also for adults, the protagonist's quest for his missing wife changes by stages ...
Homeostatic Systems
An item of sf Terminology borrowed from the pre-digital-Computer era of Cybernetics. A homeostatic system is a device which automatically maintains itself in a state of equilibrium, with input and output exactly balanced, using negative feedback devices to do so. The term originally came from physiology, for the human body itself has many homeostatic systems – perhaps more simply thought of, to ...
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 ...