SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 14 August 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 10 August 2026
Sponsor of the day: David Cowhig
Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
AI
The common acronym for Artificial Intelligence, an item of Terminology used increasingly often in information science, and hence in sf, since the late 1970s. Most writers would agree that for a Computer or other Machine of some sort to qualify as an AI it must be self-aware. There are as yet none such in the real world. Controversy continues regarding the feasibility of "strong AI", the creation of ...
Imperialism
Throughout its history, from its Proto SF origins until well into the twentieth century, sf has had a close and complex involvement with the themes of colonialism and empire. It is indeed a relationship so intimate and accustomed that it has not evoked sufficient attention as a separate issue; early editions of this encyclopedia, for instance, had no entry on the subject, though germane comments could be found dispersed throughout the text, often associated in one ...
Elwood, Roger
(1943-2007) US author and editor who published a large amount of nonfiction from about 1960, and began his main career, as editor, with a number of reprint Anthologies in the 1960s – though in fact those published under his own name were ghost-edited by Sam Moskowitz; those ostensibly in collaboration with Moskowitz or Vic Ghidalia were packaged by Elwood but not edited by him. Another ...
Logue, Mary
(1952- ) US author of a Young Adult tale, Dancing with an Alien (2000), in which a visiting Alien must persuade an adolescent girl to return to his home planet as a breeder. [JC]
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 ...