SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 22 June 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.
Site updated on 16 June 2025
Sponsor of the day: Conversation 2023
Forsyth, Frederick
(1938-2025) UK author who gained fame with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), and whose books are generally political thrillers. The Shepherd (1975 chap), however, is a sentimental Timeslip or ghost fantasy in which a pilot on Christmas Eve 1957 is saved from crashing by a World War Two pilot in an antique bomber: pilot and plane had been shot down on the Christmas Eve of 1943. ...
Metaphysical Review, The
Australian Fanzine (1984-1998) edited, published, and written by Bruce Gillespie for Melbourne, Victoria. 29 issues. American quarto (letter-size) duplicated from #1 (July 1984) to #10 (March 1987); A4 photo-offset from #11/12/13 (November 1987) to #28/29 (August 1998). Average length 40pp to #10; 80pp thereafter. / Though Gillespie first used the title for 1969-1972 APA ...
Barr, Robert
(1849-1912) Scottish-born editor and author, in Canada 1854-1876, then in the US (working as a journalist) till 1881, afterwards mostly in England; some of his lighter fiction appeared as by Luke Sharp. He co-founded The Idler with William Dunkerley (better known as John Oxenham), co-editing it with Jerome K Jerome from February 1892 to July 1895, editing it solo August 1895 to November 1898; for further details see the ...
Hartwell, David G
(1941-2016) US editor, publisher and critic, married to Kathryn Cramer from 1997; his first publication of genre interest was SF-I: A Selective Bibliography (1971 chap) with L W Currey, writing together as Kilgore Trout; he also assisted Currey in the latter's seminal ...
Carrier Command
Videogame (1988). Realtime Games (RG). Designed by Clare Edgeley, Ricardo Pinto, Ian Oliver, Graeme Bird. Platforms: Amiga, AtariST (1988); Amstrad, C64, DOS, Spectrum (1989); Mac (1990). / The original Carrier Command was both one of the first UK-developed Videogames to use real-time three-dimensional displays and an innovative fusion of Computer Wargame and action game which included ...
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 ...