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Monday 14 July 2025
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.
Site updated on 7 July 2025
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Bégouën, Max
(1893-1961) French prehistorian and author of three Prehistoric SF tales, of which only Les bisons d'argile (1925; trans Robert Luther Duffus as Bison of Clay 1926) has appeared in English; it speculatively depicts the life of prehistoric totem-worshipping humans in the foothills of the Pyrenees (see Origin of Man). Bégouën's entry for the Prix Jules Verne (see ...
Richards, Guy
(1905-1979) US author and reporter. In Two Roubles to Times Square (1956; vt Brother Bear 1956) a Near Future Russian takeover of Manhattan (see New York) by a humane dissident Invasion force is embarrassedly disowned by the Kremlin. [JC]
Sakers, Don
(1958-2021) Japanese-born reviewer and author, in USA from an early age, who began publishing sf with "Gamester" for Questar in 1981; his short work appeared in various magazines through the 1980s, and he published occasional fiction in the twenty-first century; as a reviewer, he published more than a hundred columns as regular reviewer of the Reference Library series for Analog, beginning with a guest appearance in the March 2009 issue. Much of his ...
H P Lovecraft
Also known as "Lovecraft". US acid-rock band, named, obviously, in honour of H P Lovecraft. Their first two of the band's albums (H.P. Lovecraft, 1967; H.P. Lovecraft II, 1969) include a number of covers of songs by the Beatles and Moby Grape, but also two striking song versions of Lovecraftian short stories: the hallucinogenic anthem "The White Ship" on the former, and "At the Mountains of Madness" on the latter, referencing Lovecraft's ...
James, Brett
(? - ) US author of Space Operas, often with Military SF elements, featuring inimical Alien civilizations which threaten to dominate reachable space. They include The Deadfall Project (2012) and the Outer Rim Chronicles beginning with Tangent (2017). [JC]
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 ...