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Saturday 8 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.
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Wilkins, John
(1614-1672) UK philosopher who served as the Bishop of Chester. He wrote no fiction, but was one of the first popularizers of science and a propagandist for scientific progress whose speculative nonfiction is remarkable. The nonfiction The Discovery of a New World; Or, a Discourse Tending to Prove, That 'tis Probable There May Be Another Habitable World in the Moone (1638), which seems to reflect a reading of Johannes Kepler's Somnium ...
Heroes
Gilgamesh may be the first named hero in what we think of as the Western World. Like him, most heroes in the cultures of the West are passionate, often rebellious, defenders of and bringers of relief to their homelands, and until perhaps Boudicca (floruit 60-61 CE) always male. They often descended from Gods (see Gods and Demons) but are distinct from them, like Hercules; even Prometheus, the paradigm culture hero in the Western tradition, is not a ...
N3F
Short name for the National Fantasy Fan Federation, formed in the USA in 1941; this was the brain-child of Damon Knight, who called for it in a Fanzine article titled "Unite – or Fie!" (October 1940 Fanfare ed Art Widner). After a succession of short-lived and factional US fan associations in the 1930s, the N3F proved a stable and enduring national organization. However, despite its long existence, it has maintained a ...
In Flames
Swedish heavy metal band, formed in Gothenberg in 1990 by guitarist Jesper Strömblad (1972- ) and vocalist Anders Fridén (1973- ). Their third album Whoracle (1997) is a concept album about the rise of a global society on Earth, leading to a technologically advanced utopia, which is then destroyed by the inevitability of human greed and exploitation. The apocalypse is televised. In Flames have a ...
Madariaga, Salvador de
(1886-1978) Spanish diplomat and man of letters who spent much of his life after 1916 in the UK and Switzerland, in particular between 1936 and 1975, during the rule of General Franco (1892-1975). In his sf novel, The Sacred Giraffe: Being the Second Volume of the Posthumous Works of Julio Arceval (1925), which is set in 6922 CE, the Blacks – who have survived much history, including the submergence of Europe – argue over the possibility that Whites ever actually ...
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 ...