SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 15 June 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 9 June 2025
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Longyear, Barry B
(1942-2025) US author and editor who ran a printing company with his wife before beginning to write in 1977, beginning to publish work of genre interest with "The Tryouts" in Asimov's for November/December 1978. Before his 1981 hospitalization for alcoholism and addiction to prescription drugs – an experience which formed the basis of his non-sf novel Saint Mary Blue (1988) – he had already published prolifically, sometimes as by Frederick ...
Wykes, Alan
(1914-1993) Prolific UK author, mainly of nonfiction, whose sf Satire Happyland (1952) depicts an arcadian fantasy-Island in which happiness is literally obtainable. A UK magnate turns the place into a holiday camp; a new kind of bomb finally eliminates it. The nonfiction H G Wells in the Cinema (1977) surveys all the films up to publication date based on H G Wells's fiction. [JC]
Philip, Alex
Working name of Alexander Philip (1882-1968) Scotland-born entrepreneur and author, in US with family from 1884 and in Canada from circa 1900. He is of sf interest for his Lost Race novel, The Painted Cliff (1927), set deep in a valley in the mountains of British Columbia where an ancient white civilization (Philip is condescending to Native Americans) is discovered. [JC]
Molyneux, William
(1656-1698) Irish politician, scientist, soldier, philosopher, author of several speculative works; as a text that evokes Proto SF topoi, Dioptrica Nova: A Treatise of Dioptrics: in Two Parts [for full title see Checklist] (1692) is of sf interest for its inclusion of a kind of Fantastic Voyage to the Moon and other planets, though it is made solely at remote control, via telescope. ...
Gould, F J
(1855-1938) UK author of numerous works in which he espoused an agnostic philosophy. His sf novel, The Agnostic Island (1891), a very lightly fictionalized satire on Utopia, exposes some Christian missionaries to a society which threatens their beliefs. [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 ...