SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 11 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: The Telluride Institute
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 ...
Groom, Pelham
Working name of UK-born author Arthur John Pelham-Groom (1906-1978), in Singapore from 1954. He published some stories as A J Pelham-Groom in the 1930s, beginning with "Duel of Death" for Air Stories in 1935 and continuing with several other "Death" stories that verge on sf; a similar later title, David Farlow Takes the Air (1949), oddly describes a 1940 Invention that will soon keep the Luftwaffe at bay (no prior magazine publication, which ...
Walshe, Jennifer
(1974- ) Irish composer, vocalist and artist, much acclaimed for often unclassifiable installations and musical theatre works, marked by an irreverent and witty investigation of her chosen texts and sources. Several of her pieces verge on the uncanny, such as XXX Live Nude Girls (2003), in which Barbie dolls act out teenage girls' darkest fantasies. Her ongoing Mars series begins with Mars I (2022) "for two singers, ensemble, live ...
Head, The
Film. (1959 as Die Nackte und der Satan; 1961 US). Rapid Films/Trans-Lux Distributing Corporation. Produced by Wolf C Hartwig. Directed by Victor Trivas. Written by Trivas. Masks made by Karl Hanoszek. Cast includes Dieter Eppler, Horst Frank, Karin Kernke, Christiane Maybach, Helmut Schmid and Michel Simon. 97 minutes. Black and white. / Professor Abel (Simon) has perfected a means of keeping Dogs' severed heads alive with the help of his ...
Wright, Alexis
(1950- ) Australian author, a member of the indigenous Waanyi nation whose homeland stretches along the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia; she has been associated for many years with various campaigns advocating the rights of Aboriginals. Her first two novels, Plains of Promise (1997) and Carpentaria (2006), both acutely but compassionately polemical, address her people and the life that has been imposed ...
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 ...