SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 16 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 14 July 2025
Sponsor of the day: Stuart Hopen
Flint, Homer Eon
(1889-1924) US author (born Homer Eon Flindt) whose first work was as a screenwriter in 1912, with a script for "The Joke That Spread" (there is no evidence the film was made; at least seven more scripts were sold), and whose work appeared mainly in the Frank A Munsey magazines from the teens of the century. His first sf story was "The Planeteer" (9 March 1918 All-Story Weekly); it deals with sexual rivalry and ...
Soule, Charles
(1974- ) US Comics writer and author; he has written scripts for DC Comics' Swamp Thing, though much of his more recent work has been for Marvel Comics, including work derived from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. / Soule's first novel, The Oracle Year (2018), while focusing on its ...
Besant, Walter
(1836-1901) UK author known primarily for his work outside the sf field; one of the main founders of the Society of Authors in 1884. His early novels were written in collaboration with James Rice (1843-1882); their The Case of Mr Lucraft and Other Tales (coll 1876 2vols) contains several fantasies, including the novella-length "The Case of Mr Lucraft" (27 October-10 November 1875 The World) about a man who leases out his appetite. The Revolt of Man (1882 anon) ...
Knapp, James
(1970- ) US author whose Revivors sequence comprises State of Decay (2010), which won the Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award, The Silent Army (2010) and Element Zero (2011). The series is set in a Near Future Dystopian America whose citizens – in order to avoid military service in the ...
Muir, Ward
(1878-1927) UK photographer and author whose "Further East than Asia": A Romantic Adventure (1919) is set in a Lost World – an Island in the Far East – whose inhabitants gain longevity (see Immortality) through bathing in a radioactive pool, which also gives them leprosy. [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 ...