SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 11 December 2024
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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Fawcett, Edgar
(1847-1904) US author, known primarily for his work outside the sf field. Most of his 40 or so novels belong to the realist school associated with his contemporary William Dean Howells, but (like Howells) Fawcett also wrote fantastic works. He provided a manifesto for a species of fiction which he called "realistic romance", which is very similar to some Definitions of SF: "Stories where the astonishing and peculiar ...
Vidphone
One of the oldest and once most commonly used items of sf Terminology. Early hack writers, casting around for ways of making the future seem more different and exciting than the present, generally hit upon the vidphone before anything else – though Hugo Gernsback in Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660 (April 1911-March 1912 Modern Electrics; exp as fixup 1925; rev 1950) called it the ...
Petty, John
(1919-1973) UK author, variously employed until he began publishing in 1957. The Last Refuge (1966) is a Post-Holocaust novel set in an oppressive, grey, Dystopian England that provides no refuge for the protagonist-writer. [JC]
Into the Ruins
US low-paying magazine available in print form, as a downloadable PDF and, latterly, as an Ebook. It was produced by Joel Caris of Figuration Press, Portland, Oregon and ran for sixteen quarterly issues, from Spring 2016 to Summer 2020. / The magazine's theme was the deindustrialization of civilization, looking at how the future might cope with Climate Change, fossil-fuel depletion, Pollution, ...
Cult Times
UK oversized Media Magazine printed on high-quality paper. Publisher: Visual Imagination Limited. Editors: unknown. 159 issues 1998 to 2008, plus at least three Special Editions. The schedule was generally monthly. / One of several companion titles to Starburst and TV Zone, Cult Times resembled these stablemates with, perhaps, a slightly greater emphasis on US productions. Contents ...
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 ...