SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 12 March 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 9 March 2026
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Gold, H L
(1914-1996) Canadian-born author and editor, in the USA from the age of two, though retaining dual nationality; brother of Floyd C Gale. Gold began to publish work of genre interest with "Inflexure" in Astounding for October 1934 as by Clyde Crane Campbell, selling several stories to that market, and to its sister Unknown, notably None But Lucifer (September 1939 Unknown; ...
Ball, F N
(?1909-? ) UK author of a Utopia, Metatopia (1961), featuring population control and meritocratic focus on the university system as the best source of good governance. [JC]
Siegel, Richard
(1955-2018) US illustrator, Comics artist, filmmaker and author whose one sf novel is Alien Plague (1979) as by Stephard Noir, in which a medical Disaster is sourced to the Outer Planets. Under his own name, he is best known for an sf Satire framed as a photo-documentary, ...
Ray Gun
This generic energy Weapon, usually hand-held, is one of the best-known sf Clichés which became established in the Pulp magazine era; hence the Retro-Pulp magazine title Ray Gun Revival. The term seems to have been coined by Victor Rousseau in The Messiah of the Cylinder (June-September 1917 ...
Herbert, William
Pseudonym of the unidentified UK author (? -? ) of The World Grown Young: Being a Brief Record of Reforms Carried Out from 1894-1914 by the Late Mr Philip Adams, Millionaire and Philanthropist (1892), a placidly tendentious record of Near-Future reforms imposed benevolently from above upon a grateful UK by its richest citizen. Attacks by Russia and the USA are routinely defeated. [JC]
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...