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Sunday 19 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.
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Älgarnas Trädgård
["Garden of the Elks"] Swedish space-rock band, whose only release Framtiden är ett svävande skepp, förankrat i forntiden (1972) combines pseudo-medieval folk and futuristic psychedelic styles to surprisingly good effect. The title translates as "The Future is a Hovering Ship Anchored in the Past", and a time-clash science-fictional theme links the tracks. [AR] see also: SF Music. / links ...
Blackman, Malorie
(1962- ) UK screenwriter and author, prolific in several genres and for various age levels, though she is almost certainly best-known for the Young Adult Noughts & Crosses sequence beginning with Noughts & Crosses (2001) [for vts see Checklist below], which is set in an Alternate World called Zafrica where whites are oppressed and Blacks are in charge (see ...
Tuglas, Friedebert
(1886-1971) Estonian author, born Friedebert Mihkelson, a name he abandoned in 1923 in favour of what had been his pseudonym; active from the early twentieth century, often in exile; in favour with Estonia's Communist rulers until after World War Two, becoming an internal exile around 1950, though his civil rights were restored in 1955; in 1985, the Friedebert Tuglas Museum was opened in Tallinn. Relatively little of his work has ...
Soldati, Mario
(1906-1999) Italian film director and author, well known in both capacities from the 1930s, his writing career extending from 1925 until his death; of sf interest is Lo Smeraldo (1974; trans William Weaver as The Emerald 1977), set in a fragmented Near Future Italy: nuclear explosions have turned the north into a Ruined Earth; the south remains full of chthonic ...
Zhang, C Pam
(1990- ) Chinese-born author, in US from early childhood. The immigrant protagonists of her first novel, How Much of These Hills Is Gold (2020), transact traditional regions where Westerns are normally set, and have mythopoeic experiences associated with that form at its most evocative. In the Dystopian Near Future California of 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 ...