SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 27 April 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 21 April 2025
Sponsor of the day: Janine G Stinson
Broderick, Damien
(1944-2025) Australian author, editor and critic; he had a PhD in the semiotics of fiction, science and sf with special reference to the work of Samuel R Delany. He edited four anthologies of Australian sf: The Zeitgeist Machine (anth 1977), Strange Attractors (anth 1985), Matilda at the Speed of Light (anth 1988) and Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (anth ...
Collin de Plancy, Jacques
(1793-1881) French demonologist and author, born without the aspirational "de Plancy", though he used the full name for much of his life; best known for his Dicionnaire Infernal ["Dictionary of the Infernal"] (1818), which he added and republished in various forms over several decades. He is of Proto SF interest for ...
Babbage, Charles
(1791-1871) UK mathematician and inventor, a founder of the Analytical Society in 1811, and a Fellow of the Royal Society from 1816; the first of his nearly 100 technical papers, "On continued products", appeared in 1813. His recognition of the necessity for accurate calculation of mathematical tables, as used in navigation and astronomy – after a particular bad set of calculations, he is famously reported to have said, "I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam" – ...
Palmer, Suzanne
(1968- ) US author and computer system administrator who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Ins and Outs of Intergalactic Diplomacy" in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine for August/September 2005. She topped the Asimov's Readers' Poll in various categories (including Poetry) from 2016 to 2020. Her Hard SF story ...
Scithers, George H
(1929-2010) US author, editor, publisher and military engineer; with the US Army 1946-1973, retiring with the rank of Colonel. He began publishing fiction of genre interest with "The Faithful Messenger" for If in March 1969 as George Scithers with no middle initial, and the gay pornographic sf novel Hung in Space (1969) as by Felix Lance Falkon (a pseudonym he would use for other erotic/pornographic fiction and artwork); later he wrote a spoof cookery book ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...