SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 18 February 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 16 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
Arkham House
US Small Press founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin, by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei in order to produce a collection of H P Lovecraft's stories, The Outsider and Others (coll 1939). Although this was not initially a success, the imprint continued (Derleth bought out Wandrei in 1943) and published a variety of weird, ...
Homer
(circa 800 BCE-circa 700 BCE) The most famous of early Greek poets, whether or not one or more individuals, or a guild of homers who recited poetry, and whose birth and death dates remain speculative; his or their birth and death may have occurred between the dates given above. Samuel Butler, in The Authoress of the Odyssey (1897), argued for female authorship of the Odyssey, and Robert ...
Kaiser, Henry
(1952- ) US guitarist, a prolific and important figure in improvised music, with a longstanding interest in sf and fantasy. Daniel M Pinkwater provided the text of the title track of The Devil in the Drain (1987), read by Kaiser. Crazy Backwards Alphabet (1987) is a collaboration with cartoonist and Simpsons creator Matt Groening. The Wolf at the Door (2025) ...
She
The charismatic, goddess-like female ruler – usually referred to as "She" or "She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed" – in the Ayesha sequence by H Rider Haggard, opening with She: A History of Adventure (October 1886-January 1887 The Graphic; cut 1886; full text 1887). Ayesha clearly combines aspects of Aphrodite and Isis, being imperious, ravishing and potentially Immortal; but vulgarized echoes ...
Edmonds, Leigh
(1948- ) Australian historian (with a PhD in history) and author active in Fandom since 1966; recipient of four Ditmar Awards for Fanzines and fan writing. His Fanew Sletter (100 issues, February 1974 to July 1978) was a noted Australian Newszine in its day; his many other fanzines included Ornithopter (11 ...
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 ...