Daily Archives: December 16, 2025

Top Tens – Fantasy & SF: Top 10 SF Books (Special Mention: Cult & Pulp) (1) Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

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Cover of the 1993 print edition published by Palgrave Macmillan with the SFE logo in the circle – the edition I own (and yes – I own an elusive print edition)

 

 

(1) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION (1979 – PRESENT)

“That you could be reading it right now goes without saying, since in some alternate universe you surely are”.

Quite simply, my favorite reference work for the genre of science fiction in different media – books, comics, film & television, and so on (art and illustration, magazines, even music). The first print edition was edited by Peter Nicholls and John Clute in 1979 – with entries not only for works and creators, but also the greater (and lesser) themes and terminology of science fiction. Even better, it was published online in 2011 and is regularly updated since then (winning a Hugo Award in 2012), with editors expanded to include David Langford and Graham Sleight.

And like its companion Encyclopedia for Fantasy, its most engaging strength as a reference work is not so much its entries for individual authors or works, but its compilation of SF themes and terminology or tropes – although it doesn’t have the abundant classification of subgenres, nor quite the evocative phrases used as entry titles as the Encyclopedia of Fantasy. However, it does have a handy online index of themes, featuring such themes of interest as Dream Hacking or Medieval Futurism.

It even has an entry on itself. Kudos, SFE, kudos.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER)

Top Tens – Heroes & Villains: Top 10 Villains of Mythology (Special Mention) (1) Chthonic Deities

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The classic chthonic god Hades depicted as villain in Disney’s 1997 Hercules film – character profile image in the Disney fan wiki

 

 

(1) CHTHONIC DEITIES

 

Chthonic deities are underworld deities – “gods or spirits who inhabited the underworld or existed in or under the earth, and were typically associated with death or fertility” (usually more the former than the latter). I mean, they were going to get special mention just based on the word chthonic alone, one of my favorite words.

It is somewhat unfair to rank chthonic deities as villains in mythology – and as my top special mention at that.

For one thing, while some gods are clearly more chthonic than others, “virtually any god could be considered chthonic to emphasize different aspects of the god” – Demeter and Hermes are classic examples, but even Zeus was referenced with the epithet at times.

For another, with those gods that were clearly more chthonic such as Hades, just because they were associated with death or the underworld did not make them evil or villainous as such. They could equally be neutral or even benevolent.

However, even when such deities are neutral or benevolent, there is just too powerful a tendency to default to depictions of them as adversarial or antagonistic – as with Hades himself, all too often cast as Olympian villain in popular culture. That’s just how the bones roll when your iconic association is with death or the underworld.

And for all the chthonic or underworld deities that are neutral or even benevolent, there’s others that are indeed chaotic, destructive or outright evil. After all, the Devil himself is a chthonic deity…

 

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (DEVIL TIER)