SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 13 July 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 13 July 2026
Sponsor of the day: David Cowhig
Fowler, Tom
(? - ) Scottish playwright in whose fourth play, Hope Has a Happy Meal (performed 2023; 2023), the eponymous Hope, after decades away, returns Mysterious-Stranger-like to her native land, the People's Republic of Kola Kola, which has been transformed into a tyrannical Dystopia run by international corporations and suffering very severely the effects of ...
Ottum, Bob
(1925-1986) US sports author and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "She Called Me Frankie" in Science Fiction Quarterly for May 1953. In his surprisingly funny sf novel, All Right, Everybody Off the Planet (1972), inefficient Aliens send a spy among us in human form; the Humour derives from their ignorance of human relationships and from their attempts to ...
Walker, Hugh
Pseudonym of Austrian author Hubert Straßl (1941- ), whose Magira sequence – featuring a character who first creates a Wargame and then becomes absorbed within it – begins with Reiter der Finsternis (1975; trans Christine Priest as War-Gamers' World 1978), Das Heer der Finsternis (1975; trans Christine Priest as Army of Darkness 1979), Boten der Finsternis ...
Challenging Destiny
Canadian Small Press low-paying magazine of science fiction and fantasy, published by Crystalline Sphere Publishing, St Marys, Ontario; edited throughout by David M Switzer, initially with Graham D Wall (issues 1 and 2) and then Robert P Switzer (#3-#12). It ran for 25 issues between May 1997 to December 2007, as a Print Magazine until #17 (December 2003) and thereafter as an ...
Charrette, Robert N
(1953- ) US author and Game designer, often as Bob Charrette. He co-designed the sf Role Playing Games Aftermath (1981) – with a Post-Holocaust setting – and Shadowrun (1989). His fiction consists mostly of sf and fantasy Ties, including game novelizations for the ...
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 ...