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Wednesday 23 April 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.
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Broderick, Damien
(1944-2025) Australian author, editor and critic; he had a PhD in the semiotics of fiction, science and sf with special reference to the work of Samuel R Delany. He edited four anthologies of Australian sf: The Zeitgeist Machine (anth 1977), Strange Attractors (anth 1985), Matilda at the Speed of Light (anth 1988) and Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (anth ...
Griffin, Sarah Maria
(?1988- ) Irish author whose first novel, the Near Future Young Adult Dystopian Space and Found Parts (2016), is set in a transfigured Dublin, which has been turned into an oppressive Keep by the survivors of a great Disaster a century before. Now known as the Pasture, the diminished ...
Langdon-Davies, John
(1897-1971) South African-born poet and author, mostly in the UK from the age of six, a pacifist in World War One, and much involved in Spain and its conflicts during the interWar years; he is of some sf interest for A Short History of the Future (1936), which – like J D Bernal's The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1929 chap) – is essentially an exercise in Futures Studies ...
Wilson, Peter Lamborn
(1945-2022) US anarchist author and poet who also wrote as by Hakim or (for political essays) Hakim Bey. He was controversial for occasional defences of paedophilia; his first novel of genre interest, Crowstone (1983) as by Hakim, is described on the cover as "A sword and sorcery boy-love tale" (see Sword and Sorcery). As Wilson he wrote some short sf for Interzone, ...
Wright, Lan
Working name of UK author Lionel Percy Wright (1923-2010) for all his fiction; increased responsibilities in manufacturing industry curtailed his writing career. He began publishing sf with "Operation Exodus" for New Worlds in January 1952, and was active for over a decade in UK magazines, chiefly New Worlds and Nebula Science Fiction. His Johnny Dawson series in ...
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 ...