SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 8 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.
Site updated on 3 February 2025
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
Moore, Ward
(1903-1978) US author, married to Raylyn Moore from 1965 until his death; initially as well known for his works outside the sf field as for those within. Breathe the Air Again (1942) is a picaresque Satire, told from a leftwing workingman's viewpoint rarely expressed in America; and Cloud by Day (1957) comes close to Prediction in its depiction of a savage wildfire that ...
Wagers, K B
(? - ) US author whose Indranan War sequence comprising Behind the Throne (2016) and After the Crown (2016) is a Space Opera set at the heart of a beleaguered Galactic Empire run on matriarchal lines (see Feminism). Their protagonist, a princess who suddenly succeeds to the vastly powerful throne, finds herself enmired in ...
Atomic Submarine, The
Film (1959; vt The Atomic Sub). Gorham Productions/Allied Artists. Produced by Alex Gordon. Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennett (credited as Spencer G Bennett). Written by Orville H Hampton from an original story by Irving Block and Jack Rabin (uncredited). Cast includes Dick Foran, Arthur Franz and Brett Halsey. 80 minutes cut to 72 minutes. Black and white. / In what was then the Near Future of the mid-1960s, cargo submarines (see ...
Astrogation
Literally, guidance by the stars. In sf Terminology this is the space equivalent of navigation, and the astrogator is conventionally one of the most important officers on a Spaceship. After a jump through Hyperspace, perhaps, it is necessary – although less frequently now than in the Golden Age of SF – for the astrogator to identify several stars, ...
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 ...