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Monday 16 May 2022
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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Wilson, William H
(1869-1915) US author whose sf novel Rafnaland: The Strange Story of John Heath Howard (1900) describes a voyage by Balloon to the North Pole, where the eponymous Lost World is discovered, inhabited by Vikings. Unusually, after falling in love with the local princess, the balloonist, while attempting to escape with his love, perishes. [JC]
Šteger, Aleš
(1973- ) Slovene poet, editor and author, active from the mid-1990s as a poet, the literary form for which he is best known. He is of some sf interest for Odpusti (2014; trans Noah Charney and Urška Charney as Absolution 2017), set in a surreal version of the Slovenian City of Maribor (see Fantastika), whose legitimate history has been coercively replaced by theories of reality controlled by the thirteen Secret Master members of the Great Orc, at least one of whom ...
Neubauer, William
(1916-1982) US author of a large number of romance novels under various names, including Norman Bligh, Ralph Carter, Gordon Semple and others. His two sf novels were The City of Gold (1951), a Lost Race tale, and Heroneous in 69 (1970) as by William Arthur. [JC]
Introduction to the Online Edition
Welcome to the Fourth Edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, launched online on 6 October 2021 as a direct continuation of the Third Edition, following the amicable end of our decade-long partnership with Gollancz and the SF Gateway. This reference work, which we continue to refer to in short as the SFE, is edited by John Clute and David Langford, with Graham Sleight as Managing Editor and the late Peter Nicholls acknowledged as Founding Editor. Contributing Editors who have shaped ...
Bonfiglioli, Kyril
Adopted name of Cyril Emmanuel George Bonfiglioli (1928-1985), UK son of Italo-Slovene and English parents, at various times a book dealer, art dealer, editor of Science Fantasy, and author. In the last capacity he is best known for the Charlie Mortdecai black-comedy thrillers beginning with Don't Point That Thing at Me (1973), which despite a few parodic swipes at Ian Fleming's James Bond do not venture into sf territory and are not listed below. The film Mortdecai (2015), directed by David ...
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, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its listing of Pseudonyms. Criticized at first for its failure to annotate its findings – so that, for instance, pseudonyms used for sf could not be ...