SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 15 July 2025
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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Bartlett, Vernon
(1894-1983) UK broadcaster, politician and author, who was severely disillusioned by his World War One experiences, and who served as an Independent MP 1938-1950. If I Were Dictator (1935 chap) – in the If I Were Dictator sequence, one of whose contributors was Lord Dunsany – reflected his centrist politics, and his dubiousness about dictatorships, even "benevolent". His sf novel proper, ...
Kilroy-Silk, Robert
(1942- ) UK broadcaster, politician (Labour MP 1974-1986) and occasional author, prominent in the first two roles for a volatility, ambition, party-changing episodes, and a growing Euroscepticism; he has often been lampooned in the media. His sf novel, The Ceremony of Innocence: A Novel of 1984 (1983), set in the very Near Future, reflects these tendencies and convictions. [JC]
Lease, Mary Elizabeth
(1850-1933) US editor, political activist of Feminist interest for her advocacy of women's suffrage; and author. Her activities on behalf of farmers, from her first public appearances around 1885, led to her close involvement in the founding of the anti-business Populist Party; she was a charismatic orator, unacceptable therefore by many of her male colleagues; her eventual departure from the Party signalled its imminent dissolution. It has been suggested by Brian ...
Melchiorri, Anthony J
(? - ) US biomedical engineer and author, often in collaboration with Nicholas Sanbury Smith, whose entry see for the joint Extinction Cycle: Dark Age sequence beginning with Extinction Shadow (2019). His other work is all solo. His first novel, which is like most of his work focused on heavily foregrounded action responses to planetary crises, is The God Organ (2014). His ...
Dead Space
Videogame (2008). Electronic Arts (EA). Designed by Brett Robbins, Wright Bagwell, Jatin Patel. Platforms: PS3, Win, XB360. / Dead Space is a Survival Horror game, displayed from the perspective of a Third Person Shooter and very much influenced by the arthouse terror of Alien (1979). The player character, the significantly named Isaac ...
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 ...