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
Sponsor of the day: Ansible Editions
Home-Gall, William Benjamin
(1861-1933) Hong Kong-born author, in UK from early childhood, much of whose work was written for Boys' Papers, including several sf tales as by Reginald Wray, a typical title being The Hidden World (29 May-12 June 1915 Boys' Friend; 1920 chap). Beyond the Northern Lights: Tale of Stange Adventure in Unknown Seas (1903) as by Reginald Wray is a Lost-World tale set near the North Pole; ...
Constantine, Storm
(1956-2021) UK author whose name, initially a pseudonym, became her legal name for all purposes. Her most successful work was perhaps the Wraeththu trilogy which began her career: The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit (1987; rev 2003), The Bewitchments of Love and Hate (1988; rev 2003) and The Fulfilments of Fate and Desire (1989; rev 2003), all three assembled as Wraeththu (omni 1993; rev vt ...
Expanded Horizons
US low-paying downloadable Online Magazine of Speculative Fiction, edited by D Ash (known as Dash) of Drums, Pennsylvania, and produced by J Cady (known as Jacie). Published monthly, with occasional gaps, since October 2008. It has been on hiatus since issue #60 (September 2018). / The magazine's stated mission is "to increase diversity in the field of speculative fiction" and provide a venue "so that ...
Big Eyes, Small Mouth
Role Playing Game (1997). Guardians of Order (GOO). Designed by Mark MacKinnon. / Big Eyes, Small Mouth is a generic system used for playing games inspired by Japanese Anime and Manga, both those based on specific series and those which simply share the form's characteristic themes and enthusiasm for melodrama. The title refers to a heavily stylized approach to depicting human features ...
Westward, Elton
House Name for the UK publisher Brown, Watson, several nonfantastic titles under this name being written by John Russell Fearn. Return to Mars (1954) – in which Mars is found abandoned by its native inhabitants, but conspiracies and Monsters breed all the same – was not. [JC]
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 ...