SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 29 September 2023
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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 25 September 2023
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Crow, Martha Foote
(1854-1924) US poet and author of The World Above: A Duologue (1905 chap), a short play of interest for its depiction of an Underground Dystopian Pocket Universe, from which the two protagonists escape, upwards into the surface world. [JC]
Far Future
The dutch sociologist and historian Fred Polak (1907-1985), in De toekomst is verleden tijd ["The Future Is Past Time"] (1955 2vols; trans Elise Boulding as The Image of the Future 1961 2vols; trans cut 1973), identifies two distinct categories of images of the distant future, which he calls the "future of prophecy" and the "future of destiny". Prophets, although they refer to the future, are primarily concerned with the present: they issue warnings about the ...
Delap, Richard
(1942-1987) US editor, reviewer and author who entered the sf world as a fan and soon began to publish book reviews, beginning with pieces in the Fanzine Granfalloon and contributing to "The Future in Books" column in Amazing Stories during 1959-1960. In Delap's F & SF Review he created a valuable review organ, whose folding was regretted. As a reviewer he was highly visible, being ...
Gordon, Stuart
Working name of Scottish teacher and author Richard Alexander Steuart Gordon (1947-2009), not to be confused with the director of supernatural horror films, Stuart Gordon, nor with Stuart Gordon (1924- ), the author of Gordonstown: A New Design for America (1980). Gordon also wrote as Alex R Stuart and published his first sf story – "A Light in the Sky" for New Worlds in July 1965 ...
Butterworth, Michael
(1947- ) UK author, poet, publisher and editor, in the latter capacity initially of the semiprofessional magazine Concentrate (one issue, 1968), devoted to very short stories and poems (see Flash Fiction); then of the underground Corridor (five issues 1971-1974), later called Wordworks (two issues 1975-1976), which he re-launched in 2010 as a contemporary visual arts and writing journal under the title ...
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 ...