SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 9 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
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Gibson, Walter B
(1897-1985) US newspaper magician, journalist, editor and author whose first published work was a puzzle piece called "Enigma" for St Nicholas Magazine in 1905, the first of a huge number of puzzles and other articles relating to magic published over the next 80 years, the grand total of this and other periodical work coming to at least 6800 pieces, not counting at least 2000 published crossword puzzles; Gibson's interest in the occult and various Games led to a ...
Niffenegger, Audrey
(1963- ) US artist and author whose first full-length prose fiction, The Time-Traveler's Wife (2003), which was filmed as The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) and later made into a Television series as The Time Traveler's Wife (2022 6 episodes) by showrunner Steven Moffat, carries its protagonist willy-nilly through a number of ...
Lucie-Smith, Edward
(1933- ) Jamaica-born author, poet, art curator/critic and editor, in the UK from 1946, whose most notable genre contribution is his compilation of the important early sf Poetry anthology Holding Your Eight Hands: An Anthology of Science Fiction Verse (anth 1969). Contributors included Brian Aldiss, John Brunner, Robert ...
Payne, Bernal C, Jr
(1941- ) US author the protagonists of whose Time Travel novel for Young Adult readers, It's About Time (1984; vt Trapped in Time 1986), travels back to 1955 where they meet their parents as teenagers. The future children of their marriage must ensure it takes place. The slightly later Back to the Future, released 1985, was conceived ...
Hainsselin, Montague Thomas
(1871-1943) UK naval chaplain and author, in whose Lost World tale, The Island of Maids: A Romance of the Mediterranean (1908), a parthenogenetic society of women (see Women in SF) has inhabited a Mediterranean Island in secret since the time of their ancestors the ancient Greeks. [JC]
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 ...