SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 11 March 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 9 March 2026
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Stevenson, Chris
(? - ) US author whose Planet Janitor sequence of Space Operas, beginning with Planet Janitor: Custodian of the Stars (2012), features the harum-scarum adventures of the eponymous disposal firm in the solar system, and beyond, where First Contact is achieved with exaggeratedly dangerous Aliens. The Girl They Sold to the Moon ...
Fleming, Roscoe
(1895-1974) US journalist, author and poet who began publishing work of sf interest with "The Menace of the Little" in Amazing Stories Quarterly for Summer 1931, a complex Invasion novella in which Earth defends itself against the Hive-Mind civilization of Mars whose war centre, a hollowed-out mountain in America, is eventually bombed. Fleming seems to have written ...
Intelligence Officer, The
Pseudonym of UK military officer, war correspondent (from 1894) and author Lionel James (1871-1955), of whose work The Boy Galloper (1903) as by The Intelligence Officer is a Future War story for Young Adult readers in which, reassuringly, Great Britain does not fail to come through victorious. [JC]
Thomas, D M
(1935-2023) UK poet and author who made use of sf themes most explicitly in such early Poetry as "The Head-Rape" in New Worlds for March 1968 and the two-part "Computer 70: Dreams & Lovepoems" (March-April 1970 New Worlds), a sequence assembled with other poetry of interest in Logan Stone (coll 1970); or the later "S. F." (in The Umbral Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry, anth ...
Mathews, Harry
(1930-2017) US editor, translator, poet and author, mostly in Paris from the 1960s; co-founder of the experimental journal Locus Solus (1961-1962), he was an early advocate of Oulipo, most of his exercises in this discipline being found in his Poetry; The Orchard: A Remembrance of Georges Perec (1988) is a nonfiction homage to his partner in Oulipo, Georges Perec. / Mathews is primarily of sf interest for his ...
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 ...