SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 20 March 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 20 March 2023
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Skelton, Robin
(1925-1997) UK-born poet and author, in Canada from 1962, who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Angel" in 1984 (magazine not identified). He was extremely prolific both as a poet and academic. Of sf interest is Fire of the Kindred (1987), a Prehistoric SF tale set at time just before the matriarchal world depicted (see Feminism; Women in SF) is about be forcibly ...
Fantasy Tales
UK Digest-size magazine, mostly published twice yearly. 24 issues from Summer 1977 to [Winter] 1991, initially published and edited by Stephen Jones and David A Sutton. Fantasy Tales began as a Semiprozine leaning towards dark fantasy and horror, with some Sword and Sorcery, much in the manner or Weird Tales (which early issues deliberately chose to emulate ...
Bernard, Rafe
Secondary pseudonym of UK author Reginald Alec Martin (1908-1971), better known for his Children's SF written as by E C Eliott (whom see for full entry). He used Bernard for an sf novel, The Wheel in the Sky (1954), which datedly concerns itself with the construction of a pre-NASA-style, privately financed Space Station, and for an Invaders ...
Dekobra, Maurice
Pseudonym of French author Ernest-Maurice Tessier (1885-1973), most famous for his thriller, La Madone des sleepings (1925; trans Neal Wainwright as The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars 1927); of his sf, which forms a small part of his large output, Météore 101 ([date not established]; trans Metcalfe Wood as Death Requests the Pleasure 1940) depicts Near Future chaos as Meteor 101 approaches Earth. ...
Kingsnorth, Paul
(1972- ) UK journalist and author, active from the early 1990s, much of whose nonfiction has dealt with the planetary environment, his earlier work focusing on Ecology as such, though the devouring issue of Climate Change clearly became of increasing concern. He is of sf interest for the Buccmaster trilogy comprising The Wake (2015), Beast (2017) and Alexandria ...
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 ...