SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 8 February 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 6 February 2026
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Sallis, James
(1944-2026) US musician, poet and author, briefly active in New Worlds during its Michael Moorcock-directed New-Wave phase; he began to publish work of genre interest in this context with "Kazoo" (August 1967 New Worlds) and co-edited the magazine 1968-1969. His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work ...
Wright, William Henry
(1856-1934) US journalist and author, perhaps best known for his nonfiction The Black Bear (1910) about raising a bear named Ben from infancy. Of sf interest is The Great Bread Trust (1900 chap), a Satire on capitalist excesses in which an entrepreneur, after heading a cartel that corners the market in cereal, has himself proclaimed the King of America. [JC]
Furman, Yael
(1973- ) Israeli author, who began publishing work of genre interest with "Hatzvaim Ha'nechonim" ["The Right Colours"] in Bli Panika (see Online Magazines) for October 2001. For the next few years she published well-regarded short stories in Israeli genre publications, such as the magazine Chalomot Be'aspamia and the annual Anthology series Hayo Yihiye, for ...
Idol, Billy
(1955- ) Stage name of UK pop star William Michael Albert Broad, who merits mention here only on account of his album Cyberpunk (1993), a punk-electronica concept album inspired by Idol's reading of William Gibson's Neuromancer. Many of Idol's earlier rock-punk songs are catchy, and some have proved enduring, but this album is very bad. [AR]
Spicer, Arwen
(1975- ) US academic and author, whose nonfiction work has focused on authors like William Morris and H G Wells, with an emphasis on their approach to what eventually would be known as Ecology. Her sf novel Perdita (2001) explores similar issues in a tale set on the artificially isolated eponymous planet, where pro- and anti-Technology ...
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 ...