SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 17 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 16 July 2025
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Williams, Tess
(1954-2025) UK-born teacher, editor and author, in Australia for many years, there receiving a degree in literature from Curtin University and an MA in creative writing from the University of Western Australia. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Padwan Affair" in She's Fantastical (anth 1995) edited by Judith Raphael Buckrich and Lucy Sussex. Of sf interest are two novels: Map of Power (1996), set mostly in a ...
Ableman, Paul
(1927-2006) UK author and playwright who remains best-known for his first, non-fantastic novel, I Hear Voices (1958), though his first work of sf interest – "The Prophet Mackenbee" for Lucifer in 1952, about an sf author who surrounds himself with disciples in an absurd world – came earlier. The Twilight of the Vilp (1969) is not so much sf proper as an informed and sophisticated playing with the conventions of the genre in a ...
Obreht, Téa
(1985- ) Yugoslavia/Serbia-born author, in US from the age of twelve. Her birth name was Téa Bajraktarević; she took her grandfather's surname in 2006. Her first novel, The Tiger's Wife (2010), arguably replicating Obreht's closeness to her grandfather, is structured around the tales told a young doctor by her grandfather. These tales, featuring a man who does not die and a deaf-mute girl, dextrously interact with ...
Recursive SF
Recycling material from the vast and growing storehouse of the already-written has long been a practice of sf writers. Plots and characters constantly reappear throughout sf, usually but not always in the form of sequels written by the author of the original work; venues (like Edgar Rice Burroughs's Mars) become universal props; and terms descriptive of devices or circumstances unique to sf (from BEMS to ...
Frank R Paul Award
An sf art award named in memory of Frank R Paul and administered by Ken "Khen" Moore (?1943-2009) and other committee members of the Nashville, Tennessee, Convention Kubla-Khan on behalf of the Nashville Science Fiction Association from 1976 to 1996; each winner also served as the convention's Artist Guest of Honour. The award is noteworthy for the general distinction of its recipients. The physical trophies, made by Moore, took ...
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 ...