SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 12 July 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 7 July 2025
Sponsor of the day: Ted Chiang
Buckle, Richard
(1916-2001) UK music critic who specialized in ballet, and author of a fantasticated Utopia, John Innocent at Oxford: A Fantasy (1939), which depicts a late-twentieth-century Oxford (and hence Britain) as though Max Beerbohm or Ronald Firbank had dreamed it – extravagant, witty, class-obsessed, boneless – all hilariously rendered. It may well be the last "irresponsible" pastoral utopia published before ...
Hayward, Abraham
(1801-1884) UK lawyer, man of letters and translator, well known for biographical and critical essays, and for an early (but prose) translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust (1808; 1832; trans Hayard 1833). Of sf interest is The Second Armada: A Chapter of Future History (22 June 1871 The London Times; 1871 chap; vt [for full title see Checklist] 1871 chap) anonymous, a Future War tale in which ...
Christopher, Adam
Working name of New Zealand-born author Adam Christopher McGechan (1978- ), in the UK from 2006, who began publishing work of genre interest with "The Devil in Chains, Part One" in Pantechnicon for September 2008, soon followed by "The Devil in Chains, Part Two" (March 2009 Pantechnicon). His first novel, Empire State (2012), is a noir thriller set in a retro Alternate World or ...
Colgan, Jenny
(1972- ) Scottish author who is of sf interest primarily for writing Ties for the Doctor Who universe, always as Jenny T Colgan or J T Colgan. Earlier, as Jenny Colgan or Beaton, she had begun her career with a number of romances, the first of these being Amanda's Wedding (2000). Her romantic supernatural tales include The Matchmaker (2009) and Uncross My Heart (2011 ebook). ...
Wilks, Mike
(1947- ) UK illustrator and author, who began to publish drawings of genre interest with his highly intricate, architecturally imaginative portrayal of the eponymous Edifice or City conceived in conjunction with a long narrative poem by Brian W Aldiss as Pile: Petals from St Klaed's Computer (graph 1979). Pile itself – drawn by Wilks in terms evocative of the work of M C ...
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 ...