SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 5 June 2023
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.
Site updated on 3 June 2023
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Hay, George
Working name – in life as well as in print – of UK author, editor and sf enthusiast Oswyn Robert Tregonwell Hay (1922-1997), born Oswyn Robert Cohn, who began publishing sf in the early 1950s with Flight of the "Hesper" (1951), Man, Woman – and Android (1951), This Planet for Sale (1952), plus Terra! (1952) as by King Lang, a House Name. ...
Equipoise
1. In this encyclopedia Equipoise designates the active and conscious mixing or two or more genres within a single narrative, usually within a single narrative event rather than sequentially, in order to provide a multifaceted narrative take on action, character, motif, setting. The primary effect is sometimes aesthetic pleasure. But perhaps more interestingly, an Equipoisal narrative may reveal a world richer and ultimately more graspable than a world envisioned through a single lens. ...
Burke, James Lee
(1936- ) US author active from the mid-1960s, though he only became widely known with the long Dave Robicheaux sequence of noir crime novels beginning with The Neon Rain (1987); set mostly in Louisiana from the mid-1980s on, they have become recognized as a significant series of interwoven tales – almost a roman fleuve – in which a portrayal of the gradual destruction of bayou country and the Mississippi delta gradually ...
Priestley, J B
(1894-1984) UK playwright, man of letters and author, in active service throughout World War One, being wounded more than once: the War to him was a "deep, unhealing wound", and he retained his anger at the British "officer class" for the rest of his life. After some journalism from around 1913, and a whimsical volume of poetry The Chapman of Rhymes (coll 1918 chap) [later withdrawn], the savage (if slightly precious) ...
Infinite Matrix, The
US professional cumulative Online Magazine which posted material daily but was archived monthly. It was published by Eileen Gunn and ran, after what could have been its only issue in August 2001, from November 2001 to January 2006, with three additional issues in April 2006, January 2007 and July 2008. Along with Sci Fiction and Strange Horizons, both of ...
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 ...