SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 17 July 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 16 July 2025
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Williams, Tess
(1954-2025) UK-born teacher, editor and author, in Australia for many years, there receiving a degree in literature from Curtin University and an MA in creative writing from the University of Western Australia. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Padwan Affair" in She's Fantastical (anth 1995) edited by Judith Raphael Buckrich and Lucy Sussex. Of sf interest are two novels: Map of Power (1996), set mostly in a ...
MacDonald, William Colt
(1891-1968) US author of many Westerns from 1929; of sf interest is The Singing Scorpion (1934), an early title in his Three Mesquiteers sequence about three footloose adventurers; in this case an ancient relic – the emerald eyes of Zeronteotl, an Indian god – leads to the discovery of a Lost World. [JC]
Sawyer, Robert J
(1960- ) Canadian author, one of the two or three most prominent Canadian sf writers, married to sf poet Carolyn Clink; though he publishes widely, with most of his books being released by New York firms, his work is notable for its frequent use of Canadian settings; it is a mark of twenty-first century Genre SF that Canada and Canadian settings are now perceived as non-exotic, a change for which Sawyer can share ...
Smith, Oli
(? - ) UK author exclusively to date associated with the Doctor Who universe, having written several Ties: Nuclear Time (2010) for the Doctor Who New Series, Decide Your Destiny: Judoon Monsoon (2010) for the Doctor Who: Decide Your Destiny series, and the nonfiction The Eleventh Doctor: Matt Smith (2010) for the Doctor Who Nonfiction ...
Thompson, Sean K
(1965- ) US playwright and author whose Timecross'd: A Love Story Out of Time (2003), based on his own unpublished play, implicates its protagonists, through the Invention of a time "Loop" (see Time Travel; Time Paradoxes), in a complex love affair with echoes of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (first ...
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 ...