SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 9 February 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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Sarrantonio, Al
(1952-2025) US editor and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Ahead of the Joneses" in Asimov's for March 1979. Much of his work was horror, sometimes tinged with sf (see Horror in SF), including his first novel, The Worms (1985), a Gothic tale set in Massachusetts with hints of H P Lovecraft; and the Equipoisal Moonbane ...
Skyhook
US Fanzine edited by Redd Boggs (1921-1996); also known as Sky Hook. Twenty-five issues, quarterly although with irregularities, from Winter 1948 to Autumn 1957. Of particular note was the "Pro-Phile" critical column by James Blish writing as William Atheling Jr, launched in issue 15 (Autumn 1952): these essays made up the bulk of Blish's first book of sf criticism, The Issue at Hand (coll 1964) as by William ...
Walsh, Goodwin
(? -? ) US author known only for one novel, The Voice of the Murderer (1926), of sf interest for depicting the Invention and consequences of a kind of Time Machine which accesses sounds from the past; as the title indicates, the voice of a murderer is thus detected. Walsh may be a not yet identified pseudonym. [JC]
Cridge, Alfred Denton
(1860-1922) US lecturer and author, son of Annie Denton Cridge; of sf interest is his Feminist Utopia, Utopia; Or, the History of an Extinct Planet, Psychometrically Explained (1884 chap). He should not be confused with his identically named father Alfred Denton Cridge (?1824-?1902). [JC]
Achilleos, Chris
(1947-2021) Working name of British artist Christos Achilléos, born in Famagusta, Cyprus; he moved to Britain at the age of twelve after his father died. After graduating from the Hornsey College of Art in 1969, Achilleos began receiving assignments to do book covers for British publishers; his covers for reprints of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Pellucidar novels were very unremarkable, but he displayed more creativity in works like his 1972 ...
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 ...