SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 19 June 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 June 2025
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
Forsyth, Frederick
(1938-2025) UK author who gained fame with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), and whose books are generally political thrillers. The Shepherd (1975 chap), however, is a sentimental Timeslip or ghost fantasy in which a pilot on Christmas Eve 1957 is saved from crashing by a World War Two pilot in an antique bomber: pilot and plane had been shot down on the Christmas Eve of 1943. ...
Chamberlin, Joseph Edgar
(1851-1935) US editor, journalist and author, much of his newspaper work published as by the Listener. He is of sf interest for The Ifs of History (coll 1907), a series of lightly fictionalized essays in Alternate History, each essay positing a Jonbar Point and tracing its implications. Essays include "If Charles II Had Accepted the Kingship of Virginia" and had returned to his British throne with a better ...
Yellow Magazine, The
UK fortnightly general fiction magazine published by Amalgamated Press, London; 130 issues, 23 September 1921 to 17 September 1926, appeared alternate Fridays with The Red Magazine, both edited by John Stock. The magazine was very similar to The Red, though if anything was more light-hearted. For the five years it existed it seemed to siphon away from The Red much of its mystery fiction and science fiction. Many of the same contributors ...
Timmons, Stan
(1966- ) US author, chiefly of Ties, who began to publish work of genre interest with "Life Is But a Dream" in the Marvel Universe Superhero anthology The Ultimate X-Men (anth 1996) edited by Stan Lee. His first novel was the Heavy Metal-related Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2. (1999) with Kevin Eastman. A solo venture is ...
Youmans, Brian
(? - ) US publisher and editor most associated with Small Press magazines. Starting with The Best of the Rest 1990: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy from the Small Press (anth 1991) he has edited, albeit on an extremely relaxed schedule, a series highlighting the eclectic mix of work by both new and established authors whose work was first published in the small press. Stories from ...
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 ...