SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 16 July 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 14 July 2026
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Mills, Sam
Working name of UK journalist and author Samantha Mills (1975- ), who began to publish work of genre interest with "Tic Tac Man" in New Wave of Speculative Fiction: The What If Factor (anth 2005) edited by Sean Wright. Her first novel, the Young Adult A Nicer Way to Die (2006) is nonfantastic suspense-horror; her third, Blackout (2010), is set in a Near Future ...
Smith, W T F
(? -? ) US medical doctor, journalist and author of the lightly fictionalized The Trust Trusted (1906), apparently written as early as 1904, in which a new American president helps transform his land into a Utopia with common ownership of capital. [JC]
Kassil, Lev
(1905-1970) Russian author who specialized in Young Adult tales, usually adherent to Soviet views of the proper development of Russian youth. Of sf interest is Shvambranye (1934; trans Sylvia Glass and Norbert Guterman as The Land of Shvambrania 1935; new trans Fainna Glagoleva as The Black Book and Schwambrania 1978 USSR), which describes a Lost World accessible only via a surreally ...
Simearth
Videogame (1990). Maxis. Designed by Will Wright. Platforms: DOS, Mac, Win (1990); AtariST, SNES (1991); Amiga (1992); MegaCD, PCEngineCD (1993). / SimEarth is a Toy Game which simulates the evolution of a terrestrial planet, using a model influenced by James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, a description of the Earth as a self-regulating ...
Wenzel, Kurt
(1965- ) US author whose third novel, Exposure (2007), is set in a Near Future 2017 Hollywood (see California), an ad-drenched Media Landscape, including MIBs (Moving Image Billboards) through which stalk the apparent Avatars of dead Cinema stars. The Satire is sharp, though ...
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 ...