SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 13 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.
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Hawke, Sam
(? - ) Australian author whose Poison Wars sequence, beginning with City of Lies (2018) hovers Equipoisally between Fantasy and moderately Far Future topoi with an infusion of worldbuilding in the style of the Planetary Romance. An expansive-seeming culture, with resemblances to sentimental versions of ...
Ruth, Rod
(1912-1987) Working name of American artist Rodney Ruth. After growing up in a rustic area near Lake Michigan, which inspired a lifelong devotion to nature, Ruth moved to Chicago to receive artistic training at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, the Frederick Mizen School of Arts, and the Institute of Design. Some freelance work eventually led to regular employment as a staff artist for the Chicago-based Ziff-Davis magazines, which included the sf magazines ...
Webb, Catherine
(1986- ) UK author who also writes as by Kate Griffin and Claire North, often for the Young Adult market; her first works – like the Wizard Laenan Kite sequence beginning with Mirror Dreams (2002) – were fantasy. The Horatio Lyle sequence – beginning with The Extraordinary Adventures of Horatio Lyle (2006) and ending with ...
Daníelsson, Hjalti
(1979- ) Icelandic author (see Iceland) who has been deeply involved as designer and story creator for the Videogame EVE Online, a Space Sim (see Massively Multiplayer Online Games), a Space Opera enterprise set in a ...
Tower Comics
The Comics imprint of Tower Books, active from 1965 to 1969, originally edited by Wally Wood. Wood found himself unable to handle the workload alone and brought in veteran comics writer Samm Schwartz (1920-1997) to help with all titles except his own. Wood had been promised a great deal of creative control and a large budget for the line, which included teen titles, war comics, and Superhero titles. It ...
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 ...