Site information page updated 27 May 2021.

This list was scanned from the "Checklist of Themes" in the front matter of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1979). Three entries, here marked with asterisks and coloured red, were not carried over to the second edition of 1993. Two of these were reinstated for the third edition online: Weather Control (now much expanded) and SF Overtaken by Events (as Malachronism). Note that this list does not include the many shorter "terminology" entries like Ansible, Antigravity, Antimatter, etc.

Click here for the full list of entries or here for the subset of those that were cut in the second edition.

• Absurdist SF
• Adam and Eve
• Aliens
• Alternate Worlds
• Androids
• Anonymous SF Authors
• Anthologies
• Anthropology
• Anti-Intellectualism
• Arts
• Asteroids
• Astronomy
• Atlantis
• Automation
• Bibliographies and Indexes
• Biology
• Black Holes
• Boys' Papers
• Children in SF
• Children's SF
• Cinema
• Cities
• Cliches
• Clones
• Colonization of Other Worlds
• Comic Strips and Comic Books
• Communications
• Computers
• Conceptual Breakthrough
• Conventions
• Cosmology
• Crime and Punishment
• Critical and Historical Works about SF
• Cryonics
• Cybernetics
• Cyborgs
• Definitions of SF
• Devolution
• Dianetics
• Dime Novels and Juvenile Series
• Disaster
• Discovery and Invention
• Dystopias
• Ecology
• Economics
• End of the World
• Entropy
• Eschatology
• ESP
• Evolution
• Fandom
• Fan Language
• Fantastic Voyages
• Fantasy
• Fanzines
• Far Future
• Faster Than Light
• Flying Saucers
• Force Field
• Fourth Dimension (and Others)
• Futurology
• Galactic Empires
• Games and Sports
• General Semantics
• Generation Starships
• Genetic Engineering
• Gods and Demons
• Golden Age of SF
• Gothic SF
• Gravity
• Great and Small
• Hardcore SF
• Heroes
• Heroic Fantasy
• History in SF
• History of SF
• Hive-Minds
• Holocaust and After
• Humour
• Iconoclasm *
• Illustration
• Imaginary Science
• Immortality
• Intelligence
• Invasion
• Invisibility
• Islands
• Jupiter
• Leisure
• Life on Other Worlds
• Linguistics
• Living Worlds
• Lost Worlds
• Machines
• Magazines
• Magic
• Mainstream Writers of SF
• Mars
• Mathematics
• Matter Transmission
• Media Landscape
• Medicine
• Mercury
• Messiahs
• Metaphysics
• Money
• Monsters
• The Moon
• Music and Opera
• Mutants
• Mythology
• Near Future
• New Wave
• Nuclear Power
• Origin of Man
• Optimism and Pessimism
• Outer Planets
• Overpopulation
• Pantropy
• Parallel Worlds
• Paranoia and Schizophrenia
• Parasitism and Symbiosis
• Pastoral
• Perception
• Physics
• Politics
• Pollution
• Prediction
• Proto SF
• Pseudo-Science
• Psi Powers
• Psychology
• Power Sources
• Publishing
• Pulp Magazines
• Radio
• Reincarnation
• Religion
• Robots
• Rockets
• Satire
• Sex
• SF in the Classroom
• SF Magazines
• SF Overtaken by Events *
• Scientific Errors
• Scientists
• Social Darwinism
• Sociology
• Space Opera
• Space Flight
• Spaceships
• Stars
• The Sun
• Superman
• Supernatural Creatures
• Suspended Animation
• Sword and Sorcery
• Taboos
• Technology
• Television
• Terminology
• Terraforming
• Theatre
• Time Paradoxes
• Time Travel
• Transportation
• Under the Sea
• Utopias
• Venus
• Villains
• War
• Weapons
• Weather Control *
• Women