SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 16 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 14 July 2025
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Olde Heuvelt, Thomas
(1983- ) Dutch author, mostly of horror novels which, beginning with De Onvoorziene ["The Unforseen"] (2002) tend to adhere to affect horror. More recent tales make increasing use of the SF Megatext, adding some fibre to a sense that contemporary Horror in SF may, almost surreptitiously, be world-facing. Olde Heuvel first came to the attention of the English-speaking sf world with "The Day the ...
Starzl, R F
(1899-1976) US journalist and author who between 1928 and 1934 had 24 stories published in the Pulp magazines, written primarily as a means of financing his family newspaper, the LeMars Globe-Post, of which he became the proprietor. Most of Starzl's stories are competently written but became increasingly formulaic, though he was especially good at creating different types of Monsters. His first story is his best remembered, "Out of ...
Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame
Career Award for life achievement in Comics, so named in honour of Will Eisner (1917-2005), creator of the comic The Spirit (1940-1952) and author of influential analyses of comic art and narrative; presented annually since 1988 (with 1990 skipped owing to administrative complications); since 1991 the presentations have taken place at the San Diego Comic-Con Convention. Also included below are the ...
Zhang, Kat
(1991- ) US author whose Young Adult Hybrid Chronicles sequence beginning with What's Left of Me (2012) is set in an Alternate Universe where all children are born with dual Identities, an intimate pairing that in this Dystopian society, must be outgrown. Those who refuse to cast off their recessive half – a procedure ...
Weldon, Fay
(1931-2023) UK Television and Radio scriptwriter, and author, active from the early 1960s; born Franklin Birkinshaw, granddaughter of Edgar Jepson and niece of Selwyn Jepson She began writing work of genre interest with "Angel, All Innocence" in The Thirteenth Ghost Book (anth 1977) edited by James Hale. Almost all of her work – with considerable ...
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 ...