SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 18 February 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 18 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
Stacpoole, William Henry
(1846-1914) UK lawyer and author, elder brother of H De Vere Stacpoole. In his sf novel, Herr Richter's Strange Experiment (1888), the eponymous Scientist applies his Invention – an Identity Exchange device – to the solution of a murder mystery involving identical twins. "The Teleporon" (March 1886 Longman's Magazine) ...
Smeaton, Oliphant
(1856-1914) Scottish editor and author, in New Zealand and Australia 1878-1893, where most of this fiction was set, including a modestly fantasticated adventure, The Treasure Cave of the Blue Mountains (1898), whose central guide to the hidden horde is a young woman. Smeaton is of sf interest Lost Race tale for boys, A Mystery of the Pacific (1899), though the various protagonists of the tale are all adult: three Englishmen, searching ...
Berlyn, Michael
(1949- ) US author and computer-game designer (see Cyborg) whose first novel, the sf adventure Crystal Phoenix (1980), received some adverse comment for the amount of female Torture it contains. The Integrated Man (1980) projects a Dystopian future for urbanized humanity, with a plot based on the shunting of human consciousness into ...
Kollin, Eytan
(1964- ) US teacher and author, with his twin brother Dani Kollin (whom see for details), of the Justin Cord Libertarian SF sequence beginning with The Unincorporated Man (2009). [JC]
Messiahs
In the Mythology of the Old Testament the Messiah is the deliverer of prophecy, destined to lead the Jews to their salvation; the New Testament claims that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. The term is applied by analogy to any saviour or champion whose arrival is anticipated, hoped for or desperately needed. Because Christian images of the future have always been associated with ideas of the Millennium and the Apocalypse, a preoccupation ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...