SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 30 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 ...
Jobs in SF
Though it is a theme that may easily be overlooked, the future of occupations is as much an sf concern as technological developments, for the pair are interlinked (see also Slavery). Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968; vt Blade Runner 1982), for example, is equally a tale of the workplace as it is an examination of Technology. The protagonist hunts ...
Jackman, Stuart
(1922-2002) UK author whose work hovers, somewhat uneasily, between sf and Fantasy (see his entry in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy). His Christ Cycle – comprising The Davidson Affair (1966), Slingshot (1974) and The Burning Men (1976) – combines the two modes: as it deals with matters like the resurrection in a fantasy mode, while using ...
Wessells, Henry
(1960- ) US antiquarian bookseller, editor, small press publisher and author who began to publish sf outside the genre with "Virtual Wisdom" for Exquisite Corpse in 1992, a literary journal edited by Andrei Codrescu, and within the genre with "From This Swamp" in The Starry Wisdom (anth 1994) edited by D M Mitchell. In 1993, , he began to compile bibliographical information relating to the work of Avram Davidson. His ...
Barron, Neil
(1934-2010) US bibliographer and book editor, trained as a librarian, who received a Pilgrim Award in 1982 for his work; he has produced some of the liveliest and most readable scholarship in sf, notably in the five well-researched editions of Anatomy of Wonder: Science Fiction (1976; exp vt Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction: Second Edition 1981; further exp vt ...
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 ...