SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 12 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: Kees van Toorn and LAcon V
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 ...
Hightower, Lynn S
(1956- ) US author of crime novels, like the Sonora Blair sequence beginning with Eyeshot (1986), and of sf, primarily the David Silver/Elaki sequence comprising Alien Blues (1992), Alien Eyes (1993), Alien Heat (1994) and Alien Rites (1995). Except for the presence of an Alien sidekick, and plots generated by interactions between sleuth Silver and the Elaki, the ...
Play by Mail
Term used to describe a game in which the players communicate by (physical) post. Typically all participants send their moves in at regular intervals to a central moderator, who processes the orders simultaneously and returns the results. The moderator is generally the only individual involved to know the current state of all the pieces belonging to every player. Sf examples include Starweb (1976) and ...
3SF
UK A4-size Slick magazine published by Ben Jeapes, Big Engine Co, London, and edited by Liz Holliday. It saw only three bimonthly issues, October 2002 to February 2003, before the publishing company went into liquidation. A fourth issue was completed but not printed. Although printed on good quality coated paper, 3SF lacked the glitz and sparkle of Liz Holliday's previous magazine Odyssey and, when ...
Uesu Tetsuto
(? - ) Writing name of a Japanese author of Light Novels, whose most prominent works have bloated into serial fixups across other media, particularly Manga and Anime, with underlying themes arguably ill-suited to their low-brow venues. His first work, Kanojo wa Megane-HOLIC ["She's a Spectacle-HOLIC"] (2008-2009), exploits the elision in Japanese everyday ...
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 ...