SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 9 December 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 8 December 2025
Sponsor of the day: Ted Chiang
Left Coast
Role Playing Game (2005; rev 2011; vt Left Coast: The Short Story Edition). Steve Hickey Games. Designed by Steve Hickey, with input from Avery Alder, Simon Carryer, Ron Edwards, Craig Hargraves, Zed Lopez, Manu, Dan Maruschak, Mike Sands and Ivan Towlson. / Independent Game in which those playing improvise scenes from the life of "Jane P Richards", a Scientist ...
VGA Planets
Videogame (1992). Designed by Tim Wissemann. Platforms: DOS, Win. / VGA Planets is a turn-based 4X Game of galactic domination displayed on a two-dimensional map, broadly similar to its near contemporary Master of Orion (1993). ("VGA" refers to a type of graphics hardware; its use in early versions made the game more visually appealing than some of its competitors.) After ...
Parenteau, Shirley
(1935- ) US author, mostly of picture books for children, whose sf novel for older children, The Talking Coffins of Cryo-City (1979), a putative Utopia which deals with problems through Weather Control, and with criminals through Cryogenic Suspended Animation (see ...
Garnett, Tay
Working name of US film director and author William Taylor Garnett (1884-1977), whose Lost Race novel, Man Laughs Back (1935), is set deep in the South American jungle, where a native civilization, descended from the Incas, is instrumental in keeping a foolhardy surveyor (and his team of twenty-six lads) from disaster. As a director, he is best known for The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946); of sf interest is ...
Raffi, Sam
(? - ) US author of a Sex novel, Lust Potion 69 (1969), involving an aphrodisiac (see Drugs). [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 reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...