SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 9 July 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 7 July 2025
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Schwehn, Kaethe
(circa 1979- ) US academic, memoirist and author whose first novel, The Rending and the Nest (2018) is of sf interest for its depiction of a vast Disaster, the disappearance of 95% of the human race, though typically of the Mainstream Writer of SF this "inexplicable" vanishment is more metaphorical than actual. The survivors of this disaster, or some of them, occupy a remote ...
Bjerke, Tore
(1942- ) Norwegian amateur astronomer and author of realistic sf dealing with Space Flight. He did not write many books, but Rendezvous (1970) in particular was one of the notable astronomically correct novels of the 1970s. More or less forgotten today, it was announced as "a thriller in the international diplomatic environment" – not regarded as sf by the publisher, although it clearly was. ...
Schaffer, Gene
(1941- ) US author in whose sf novel, Countdown to Doomsday (1982), Aliens direct a remote-control satellite to Earth, where it emits a Ray that makes all women infertile; the purpose is eventually to clear the planet of humans. [JC]
American Science Fiction Magazine
Australian monthly pocketbook magazine, a companion to Selected Science Fiction (which see). 41 issues, May 1952 to September 1955, unnumbered and undated 32pp booklets. Published by The Malian Press, Sydney; edited anonymously by the publisher James Mitchell. The word "magazine" was not added to the cover until issue #25, suggesting that this had started as a book series rather than a magazine, and that the publisher ...
Cullingworth, N J
(1947- ) UK author of Dodos of Einstein (1976), a routine sf novel for Robert Hale Limited whose protagonists investigates the activities of the world Computer. [JC]
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 ...