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Friday 11 September 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 7 September 2026
Sponsor of the day: David Cowhig
Erikson, Steven
Pseudonym of Canadian archaeologist, anthropologist (no longer active in either profession) and author Steve Rune Lundin (1959- ), whose first books, published under his own name, were mostly nonfantastic, beginning with A Ruin of Feathers (coll of linked stories 1991); the title story of Revolvo and Other Canadian Tales (coll 1998; rev vt including title story only Revolvo 2008 chap as by Steven Erikson) is a ...
Eggleton, Bob
(1960- ) US illustrator who has worked in the sf field since 1984 when he did his first book cover, for Baen Books. He has worked for a number of publishers since then. For his paintings he normally uses acrylic. He has quite a wide range – fantasy and horror as well as sf – but is especially known for his space and Spaceship paintings, which are at once interestingly detailed and sweepingly ...
Wouters de Vassé, Cornélie
(1737-1802) Belgian translator and author whose Le Nouveau Continent ["The New Continent"] (1783) allegorizes the American revolution without fantastic content. Le Char volant, ou Voyage dans la lune ["The Flying Car, or a Voyage to the Moon"] (1783), on the other hand, is a genuine example of Proto SF, featuring a Fantastic Voyage by two men to the Moon, where they discover ...
Davidson, John
(1857-1909) Scottish poet, playwright, schoolteacher and author, best known in the first capacity for his Fleet Street Eclogues (coll 1893 chap); though not specifically fantastic, his intensely urban poetry, much of which focuses on science and technology from an almost mystical point of view, had a shaping influence now forgotten. Some tales, like Perfervid: The Career of Ninian Jamieson (1890), contain unfocused elements of the fantastic, partly through spoof ...
Foster, David
(1944- ) Australian author, much of whose work hovers close to the fantastic (see Equipoise), like Moonlite (1981), through whose floridly picaresque structure an exorbitant vision of the history of Australian immigration can be discerned, or The Adventures of Christian Rosy Cross (1986), a tale reminiscent of the work of Thomas Pynchon whose ...
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 ...