SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 7 October 2022
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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 3 October 2022
Sponsor of the day: Ansible Editions
Dargon
Pseudonym of the unknown UK author (? -? ) who also published racist works as by G G; The Nameless Order (1924) posits a secret society of esoteric religionists (he was also anti-Semitic) who take over the world (see Paranoia; Race in SF). [JC]
Blair, Andrew
(1849-1885) Scottish medical doctor and author whose Future History, Annals of the Twenty-Ninth Century; Or, The Autobiography of the Tenth President of the World Republic (1874 3vols) anonymous, celebrates, at times quite exuberantly, the rapid advance of science on Earth and the complete ecospheric control of the planet. In the second and third volumes, the protagonist of the narrative undertakes a trip to the Moon, which is soon colonized; and after tours of Venus and Mars, both planets ...
James Tiptree Jr Award
This juried award has been presented since March 1992 in memory of James Tiptree Jr, for sf or fantasy fiction that best "explores or expands gender roles". It is usually given at Wiscon, the annual Convention held in Madison, Wisconsin. In 2019, in the wake of debates about the renaming of the John W Campbell Award and John W Campbell Memorial Award, it was decided that the award should henceforth become the Otherwise Award (from the 2020 presentation onward). Following the practice of the ...
Pohle, Robert W, Jr
(1949- ) US author of a Space Opera, Doom of Three Planets (1978), and of a study of the actor Christopher Lee (1922-2015), The Films of Christopher Lee (1983) with Douglas C Hart. The latter is long out of date. [JC]
Maalouf, Amin
(1949- ) Lebanese author, in France from 1976; best known for historical novels. In his Near Future sf tale, Premier siècle après Béatrice (1992: trans Dorothy S Bair as The First Century After Beatrice 1993), an entomologist discovers that a readily available bean contains an easily synthesized Drug that will guarantee male children. The First World nations secretly administer the drug to the Third World, suffering from Overpopulation till 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 reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...