SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 8 February 2025
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 3 February 2025
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Sarrantonio, Al
(1952-2025) US editor and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Ahead of the Joneses" in Asimov's for March 1979. Much of his work was horror, sometimes tinged with sf (see Horror in SF), including his first novel, The Worms (1985), a Gothic tale set in Massachusetts with hints of H P Lovecraft; and the Equipoisal Moonbane ...
Dalton, Henry Robert Samuel
(1834-1903) UK poet and author, active from 1857 to about 1890, much of whose work treated of the emancipation of women (see Feminism), and whose sf novel Lesbia Newman: A Novel (1889) depicts a profound change in UK social attitudes after the disastrous loss of Ireland and the USA in 1890, as a consequence of which the eponymous female manages to seduce the Ecumenical Council of 1900 into proclaiming the worship of women (see ...
Vara, Vauhini
(? - ) Canadian-born journalist, editor and author, in US from late childhood, who is of sf interest for her first novel, The Immortal King Rao (2022), set mostly in the Near Future of an Alternate World version of a "Hothouse Earth" devastated by Climate Change. The loose ...
Gaillard, Stephen
Pseudonym of A L Peticolas (1872-1948), US telephone worker – with Chicago Bell circa 1915 – editor and author. His only publication seems to be The Pirates of the Sky: A Tale of Modern Adventure (1915), a competent Young Adult tale in which an intrepid pilot and a resourceful newspaper reporter track down and are instrumental in defeating an anarchist conspiracy whose plans hint at the ...
Mackey, Douglas A
(1947- ) US author and critic with a 1975 PhD in English from the University of Kansas, who began to publish reviews of genre interest in Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review for February 1979. His book-length sf critical studies are The Rainbow Quest of Thomas Pynchon (1980), on Thomas Pynchon; Philip K. Dick (1988), on Philip K ...
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 ...