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Wednesday 13 May 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.
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Suzuki Kōji
(1957-2026) Japanese author and essayist, largely known in English through the Cinema adaptations of several of his books, the international success of which obscured his wide-ranging domestic output. His horror and Equipoisal fiction proceeded in tandem with a wide array (not listed here) of books on young fatherhood and occasional works on motorcycle travel. He was also the translator of Simon Brett's ...
Cholewa, Michał
(1980- ) Polish author and computer scientist, son of the prominent translator of Fantastika Piotr W Cholewa; both are active members of Polish Fandom. He is known primarily for his series Algorytm Wojny ["The Algorithm of War"], regarded as a leading example of Polish Military SF Space Opera. / Cholewa began to ...
Wasserstein, Izzy
(? - ) US poet and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Unplaces: An Atlas of Non-Existence" in Clarkesworld for March 2018; a representative sample of her incessantly Equipoisal short fiction has been assembled as All the Hometowns You Can't Stay Away From (2022). Wasserstein's first novel, These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart (2024), is ...
Howell, George Rogers
(1833-1899) US educationist, editor and author of Noah's Log Book: How Two Americans Blasted the Ice on Mt Ararat and Found Noah's Ark and Some Curious Relics (coll 1898), the title tale describing the discovery of, and transcribing, Noah's journal. To this is appended "The Open Polar Sea: Its Discovery by an Unknown New Yorker, Believed to be From the East End of Long Island", whose narrator has travelled by Balloon to a clement ...
Drugs
The use of drugs, both real and imaginary, is a common theme in sf, notably in Cyberpunk. The topic is discussed in some detail under Perception, and a little under New Wave and Psychology. Film and television treatments of the theme include Altered States (1980), Doomwatch (1970-1972), ...
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 ...