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Sunday 12 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.
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Barjavel, René
(1911-1985) French author, active in later life as a screenwriter and journalist. His first novel to be translated, Ravage (1943; trans Damon Knight as Ashes, Ashes 1967), describes a France driven inwards into rural quiescence in 2052 by a great Disaster, as the Sun becomes volatile, causing the sudden disappearance of electricity from the world; the corrupting effects of ...
Desfontaines, Pierre François Guyot
(1685-1745) French Jesuit, who left the order in 1715; critic, controversialist, translator and author; he is now remembered primarily for his quarrels with Voltaire. After translating Jonathan Swift's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and Then a Captain of Several Ships (1726 4vols) in 1727, he published ...
François, Yves Regis
Working name of French-born author Yves Regis François Barbero (1943-2009), in the US from early childhood; in his Space Opera, The CTZ Paradigm (1975), the Interstellar Confederation is threatened by religious fanatics (see Religion) whose shock troops, Androids constructed from Aliens, threaten to conquer the galaxy. [JC]
Clark, Ronald W
(1916-1987) UK author and journalist, active mainly with nonfiction since before World War Two, writing several biographies of figures like Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell. He began publishing sf with "The Man Who Went Back" for the London Evening Standard in 1949, but was not a prolific contributor to the genre. His first sf novel, Queen Victoria's Bomb: The Disclosures of Professor Franklin Huxtable, MA, Cantab. (1967), achieved ...
Timms, E V
(1895-1960) Australian screenwriter and author who was in active service during World War One; his books for adults are nonfantastic, but his children's fiction include two Lost Race tales: The Valley of Adventure: A Story for Boys (1926), which finds a secret enclave deep in the Australian outback to be inhabited by aborigines, who pose a threat to White Australians; and ...
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 ...