SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 18 February 2025
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.
Site updated on 17 February 2025
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Moore, Chris
(1947-2025) Prolific UK artist, known to the public primarily for his hard-edged treatment of Hard SF subjects, although in fact he produced covers in different styles for all sorts of other genres as well, including illustrations of record sleeves for artists as diverse as Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo and Pentangle. What impressed most about Moore's sf art was not just the photographic realism but the sense of scale, achieved largely through a ...
Skylark Award
The familiar name for the E E Smith or Edward E Smith Memorial Award, an Award presented in memory of E E Smith by the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA) at Boskone, its annual Convention. Winners, who are chosen by vote of NESFA members, are honoured for having "contributed significantly to science fiction, both through work in the field and by exemplifying the personal qualities which made ...
Hive Minds
A hive mind is the organizing principle of the community in those insect species of which the basic reproductive unit is the hive, organized around a single fertile female, the queen. The term is used more loosely in some sf stories, often referring to any situation in which minds are linked in such a way that the whole becomes dominant over the parts. / Because the organization of social-insect communities is so very different from that of mammal communities, while showing a degree of ...
Nexxus
US professional Online Magazine produced by Richmond Wilson, Baltimore, Maryland. It ran for eleven quarterly issues, Winter 2001 to Fall 2003. Its former online issues can no longer be accessed and little from this magazine seems to have been reprinted. The Fall 2002 issue became memorable because one of its stories, "A Gift of Verse" by John A Flynn, was nominated for a Hugo award but had to be withdrawn because it was a reprint ...
Arrival
Film (2016). Paramount Pictures presents a 21 Laps Entertainment, FilmNation Entertainment and Lava Bear Films production. Directed by Denis Villeneuve. Written by Eric Heisserer, based on "Story of Your Life" (in Starlight 2, anth 1998, ed Patrick Nielsen Hayden) by Ted Chiang. Cast includes Amy Adams, Tzi Ma, Jeremy Renner, Michael Stuhlbarg and Forest Whitaker. ...
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 reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...