SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 17 February 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 16 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Innes, Michael
Pseudonym used by Scots author and academic J I M Stewart (1906-1994) for his many detective and thriller novels published from 1936 to 1986, often featuring series character John Appleby in various official roles from detective-inspector to Sir John Appleby, Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, and onward through a long, active retirement. Though often fantastical and donnishly whimsical, these tales normally keep sf devices at arm's length or play with them only speculatively. In the ...
Weir, Andy
(1972- ) US author who has also written as by Jack Sharp and has self-published fiction at his Galactanet site [see links below] since 2009. His first novel, The Martian (2014), initially self-published as a free online ebook in 2012, describes in considerable detail the travails of an astronaut stranded on Mars as fellow-Scientists work out a way to rescue him. His survival techniques include ...
Bermúdez, María Elvira
(1916-1988) Mexican editor, academic and author; her fiction, mostly detective novels, is mostly nonfantastic. She is of sf interest (see Women SF Writers) primarily for an influential Anthology, Cuentos Fantásticos Mexicanos ["Mexican Fantastic Tales"] (anth 1986), which presents some of her own work. Contributors with entries in this encyclopedia include Juan José ...
Page, Norvell W
(1906-1961) US author who specialized between 1930 and 1943 in Hero/Villain Pulp adventure, much of his production being novel-length stories for The Spider, featuring the eponymous nascent Superhero, whose powers and Weapons – including a thin silk web used for climbing buildings – always press the ...
Bell, Harry
(1947- ) UK civil servant (retired 1997) and artist, active in Fandom since 1965 though with occasional periods of silence. He has contributed cartoon artwork to many Fanzines including Ansible, Checkpoint, Maya, Robert Lichtman's Trap Door and Leroy Kettle's ...
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 ...