SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 15 January 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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Niven, Larry
Working name of US author Laurence van Cott Niven (1938- ). He was born in California, where he set many of his stories, and gained a BA in mathematics from Washburn University, Kansas. From his first publication, "The Coldest Place" for If in December 1964, he set his mark on the US sf field as a Hard SF writer of remarkable vigour and inventiveness, soon winning four short-fiction Hugos: for ...
Vincent, Joyce
(? -? ) Australian author of some sf interest for The Celestial Hand: A Sensational Story (1903), a Future War tale in the midst of which a Utopia is described. [JC]
X Series, The
Videogame series (from 1999). Egosoft. / The X Series is a line of Space Sims, descended from Elite (1984). The player has considerable freedom to explore, trade, mine asteroids, fight pirates (or become one), carry out missions (including bounty-hunting and passenger transport), or create a commercial empire of space-based factories and fleets of starships. The game universe itself is ...
Quaglia, Roberto
(1962- ) Italian author whose first works of genre interest were published in Romanian translation, beginning with Vagabondul interspatial (trans Cornel Nicolau from 1985 manuscript 1994; as Paradoxine: The Adventures of James Vagabond 2009); GOD Ltd (trans Peter de Ville from 1985 manuscript 1992 chap) is a Satire set in Western America about a deity who seems half ...
Anthony, Kaye
(? -? ) UK author of a mildly Satirical Utopia set in Near Future Britain, whose nature is suggested by its full title: The Passionate Calvary: Being an Introduction to the Conquest of England by the Forces of the Unknown and More Particularly to William Bundle, Grocer, Founder of the Peckham Guild of Thought, and King of England (1932); through the influence of ...
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 ...