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Saturday 12 September 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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Afford, Malcolm R
(1906-1954) Australian playwright, scriptwriter and author whose novels are adventure thrillers without fantastic content. His only known sf story, "The Gland Men of the Island" (January 1931 Wonder Stories; vt "The Ho-Ming Gland" February 1933 Amazing), is a Yellow Peril tale set on a Pacific Island, where a ...
Gibbons, Dave
Working name of prolific, award-winning UK Comic-strip artist David Chester Gibbons (1949- ); using a bold, firm line style, he specializes in the Superhero genre. Born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, he trained as a surveyor and began his artistic career providing Illustrations and strips for fanzines. He turned professional in 1973, drawing The Wriggling Wrecker for the D C ...
Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell
Japanese film (1968); original title Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro; vt Goke, the Vampire; vt Bodysnatcher from Hell; vt Body-Snatcher Goke. Shochiku. Directed by Hajime Sato. Written by Kyuzo Kobayashi and Susumu Takaku. Cast includes Kathy Horan, Nobuo Kaneko, Kazuo Kato, Eizo Kitamura, Hideo Ko, Yuko Kusunoki, Keiichi Noda, Tomomi Sato, Masaya Takahashi and Teruo Yoshida. 84 minutes. Colour. / On a Japanese airliner the politician Mr ...
Wallis, G McDonald
(1925-2011) US actress – under the names Hope Campbell and Kathy McDonald – and author. As by Hope Campbell, she wrote some Young Adult novels, including Looking for Hamlet: A Haunting at Deeping Lake (1987); as by Virginia Hughes, she wrote the Young Adult Peggy Lane Theatres Stories sequence of mild non-fantastic adventure tales; she also wrote at least one similar tale as by True Summers. ...
Vyse, Michael
(? - ) UK teacher, painter and author, latterly resident in France, whose only known books both appeared in 1980. The tales assembled in The Outer Reaches (coll 1980) seem previously unpublished, but knowledgeably and competently run a wide gamut of sf and fantasy, most of the stories being moderately pessimistic about the prospects for planet Earth. Overworld (1980), a Dystopian ...
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 ...