SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 11 July 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 July 2026
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Mottram, R H
(1883-1971) UK banker, poet and author, in active service during World War One; he published in 1907 and later some early poems as by J Marjoram, but effectively initiated his long and prolific writing career with the famous Spanish Farm trilogy beginning with The Spanish Farm (1924), a fictionalized chronicle of his World War One experiences upon which his reputation stands, though all his work shows the ...
Arts
By virtue of its nature, sf has one foot firmly set in each of C P Snow's "two cultures", and sf stories occasionally exhibit an exaggerated awareness of that divide. Charles L Harness's notable novella "The Rose" (March 1953 Authentic) takes the reconciliation of an assumed antagonism between art and science as its theme, the author adopting the view that the emotional richness of art is necessary to temper ...
Evans, I O
(1894-1977) South-African-born editor and author, in UK from an early age, and a UK civil servant from 1912; he was in active service throughout World War One. His first book of sf relevance was the nonfiction The World of Tomorrow – A Junior Book of Forecasts (1933), focusing on possible future Inventions, partly illustrated with reproductions of artwork from sf magazines, and thus – almost accidentally ...
Elements
Although little excitement is now aroused by the addition of yet another short-lived heavy element to the Periodic Table of Physics [see links below], new elements with extraordinary properties used to be highly popular sf devices. Public awareness of radioactivity led to much fictional exploitation of unstable, Ray-emitting nuclides, especially radium itself, and reawakening of interest in the old theme of ...
Argentina
In 1816, a few weeks before the declaration of Argentine independence, the country's first science fiction story, "Delirio" ["Delirium"], was published anonymously in the periodical La Prensa Argentina. This short story starts a broad tradition of science fiction in Argentine literature, with more than 50 published works in the nineteenth century. The most outstanding works of that century belong to the doctor and naturalist Edward L Holmberg (1852-1937), among them ...
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 ...