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
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Brazier, Paul
(1950-2016) UK editor and graphic designer, active in Fandom since the early 1980s with reviews in Vector, from 1990 also reviewing for Interzone. He edited and published the three issues of the Brighton-based UK SF Magazine Nexus (which see) from 1991 to 1993; in October 1994 this Semiprozine was merged into ...
Communications
Many aspects of communication in sf are dealt with under separate entries in this volume. The most familiar form of communication is through language, for a discussion of which see Linguistics. For the perennially popular theme of opening communications with unfamiliar aliens, see First Contact; for initially discovering their existence, see SETI. Direct mental communication is discussed under ...
TransVersions
Canadian Digest-size Small Press Semiprozine published by Island Speciality Reports, Victoria for the first eight issues, Autumn 1994 to Spring/Summer 1998, and then by Paper Orchid Press, Toronto. Edited by Dale L Sproule and Sally McBride through to issue #10 (Spring 1999) and then by Marcel Gagne and Sally Tomasevic. Issue #8/9 was a double issue, so that there were only ten ...
Sayles, John
(1950- ) US author and film-maker who made his reputation as a writer with the novels Pride of the Bimbos (1975) and Union Dues (1977) and his collection The Anarchist's Convention (coll 1979). He began writing scripts for exploitation movies in the late 1970s, and enjoyed a burst of creativity in association with Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Lewis Teague and Steven ...
Bell, Neil
Preferred pseudonym of UK author Stephen Southwold (1887-1964), born Stephen Henry Critten; he took the name Southwold from his birthplace in Suffolk, because he despised his father, for reasons made clear in the semi-autobiographical chapters which recur in many of his novels; though it has been stated that he changed his name to Bell by deed poll around 1930, this seems not actually to have happened. At least one posthumous volume is copyrighted "Mrs Stephen Southwald". Though he also wrote ...
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 ...