SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 12 April 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 6 April 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Ball, John, Jr
(1911-1988) US commercial pilot and author, much better known for work in other genres – like In the Heat of the Night (1965) – than for his sf novels, the first of which, Operation Springboard (1958; vt Operation Space 1960), is a juvenile about a space race to Venus; The First Team (1971) is a Near Future thriller depicting underground resistance to a Russian takeover of America. [JC]
Star Wars: X-Wing
Videogame (1993). Totally Games (TG). Designed by Lawrence Holland, Edward Kilham. Platforms: DOS (1993); rev DOS (1994); Mac, Win (1996). / Star Wars: X-Wing is the first in a series of Space Sims set in the Star Wars universe. Written by developers who had previously worked on World War Two aerial conflict simulations, they present space combat as ...
Niekas
US Fanzine (1962-?2001) edited from New Hampshire by Ed Meskys (1936-2021) alone for the first five issues, when it was a small, personal fanzine circulated through an APA; then with Felice Rolfe and Anne Chatland from #6, Chatland dropping out after #8. Under Meskys and Rolfe, Niekas established itself as a large and variegated magazine containing a mixture of articles, but with particular emphasis on ...
Ottum, Bob
(1925-1986) US sports author and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "She Called Me Frankie" in Science Fiction Quarterly for May 1953. In his surprisingly funny sf novel, All Right, Everybody Off the Planet (1972), inefficient Aliens send a spy among us in human form; the Humour derives from their ignorance of human relationships and from their attempts to ...
Barlow, Steve
(? - ) Pseudonym of Steve Lowe, UK author of two Star Wars parodies – Star Bores (1999) and Star Bores: The Prequel (2004 dos) – both with Steve Skidmore. Barlow and Skidmore have collaborated on very many books and scripts for child and Young Adult readers. The Outernet sequence involves Cyberspace derring-do in the galactic ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...