SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 18 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
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
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 ...
Silver, Steven H
(1967- ) US author, editor, reviewer and fan, long associated with the Sidewise Awards for Alternate-History fiction which (with Evelyn C Leeper and Robert B Schmunk) he created in 1995. For many years he was most visible as compiler of the useful online news diary at SF Site, from its launch in 1997 until the feature went on hiatus in 2018. His ...
Enmascarado de Plata, El
Mexican film (1954; vt The Silver Masked Man). Filmex. Directed by René Cardona. Written by René Cardona, José G Cruz and Ramón Obón. Cast includes Luis Aldás, Crox Alvarado, René Cardona Jr, Víctor Junco, Aurora Segura. 125 minutes. Black and white. IMDb gives the release year as 1954, but the end credits say MCMLIII, ie. 1953. This was originally intended as a twelve-part ...
Smith, Clark Ashton
(1893-1961) US sculptor and author, of primary interest for his tales of Science Fantasy and horror (see Horror in SF); the rich style (sometimes idiomatic, sometimes "jewelled" in the early Lord Dunsany manner) and baroque invention of this work did much to transform the interplanetary romance of the early years of the century into the full-fledged Post-World War Two ...
Southesk, The Earl of
Title from 1855 of Scottish poet, antiquary and author James Carnegie (1827-1905). His poetry tends to the occult, though his privately-published book-length narrative poem, Lurida Lumina (1876 chap) anonymous, describes the Near Future Invasion of England by France within a Battle of Dorking frame. His prose of sf interest includes two sf novels. In Herminius: A Romance ...
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 ...