SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 19 February 2025
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 18 February 2025
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Moore, Chris
(1947-2025) Prolific UK artist, known to the public primarily for his hard-edged treatment of Hard SF subjects, although in fact he produced covers in different styles for all sorts of other genres as well, including illustrations of record sleeves for artists as diverse as Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo and Pentangle. What impressed most about Moore's sf art was not just the photographic realism but the sense of scale, achieved largely through a ...
Dreyer, Hans P
(1886-1945) Norwegian-born author, in US from the early years of the century; his sf novel, The Secret of the Sphinx (1929), is a Lost Race tale set in the Himalayas, to which am impecunious young doctor travels, leaving his wife behind. Her adventures, which include defending herself from a sexual abuser, may seem more fraught. [JC]
Hinge, Mike
(1931-2003) New Zealand designer and illustrator, in US from around 1958 (his return to New Zealand in 1984 was brief), gaining considerable success for his early non-genre work, including two covers for Time Magazine (the emperor Hirohito, October 1971; President Nixon, November 1973). A "cryogenic module", commissioned by Stanley Kubrick to publicize 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), was never assembled. ...
Odoevsky, Vladimir
(1803-1869) Russian music critic and composer, philosopher, politician and author, almost exclusively of short stories; he wrote cookery articles as by Mister Puff; his surname is also transliterated as Odoyevsky. He was the last survivor of an ancient Russian family, and could therefore legitimately be designated a prince. Most of his early work was written for children, sometimes as by Granddad Irinei, and has not been widely translated; he is perhaps best known for Russkije nochi ...
Essex House
A short-lived (1968-1969) Los Angeles publishing imprint, a subsidiary of Milton Luros's Parliament News, Inc, specializing in highbrow erotica. Many Essex House novelists were young serious writers (several of them poets), and some used scenarios drawn from sf and fantasy, including future Dystopias, as settings for their pornography. About half the 42 titles published by Essex House were sf/fantasy; they included novels by Philip José ...
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 ...