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Sunday 7 June 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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Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author several of whose books focused on London, including Capital (1975), a complex set of era-switching meditations – including a Neanderthal man's thoughts about the future – on the deep mythos of the city. The novel influenced Michael Moorcock's Mother London (1988) (as the author acknowledged clearly), and similar later works by Iain ...
Savage, D J
(1950- ) US attorney and author in whose Near Future tale, The Glass Lady: The Space Shuttle Novel (1985), an advanced satellite, with laser on board, goes out of control and threatens the world. [JC]
Gurdon, J E
(1898-1973) UK soldier – as a World War One flying ace he won a DFC – and author, publishing many stories in UK magazines, and two books of some sf interest: Feeding the Wind (1924), featuring a Mad Scientist who almost blows up the world; and a Lost World tale for Young Adult readers, The Secret of the South (1950), featuring a ...
Human Kind Of
US animated online series (2018). Facebook Watch. Created by Diana McCorry. Executive Producers Adam Belfer, James Belfer, Diana McCorry and Daniel Shepard. Written by Jamie Loftus, Diana McCorry, Daniel Shepard and Moujan Zolfaghari. Directed by Joy Buran and Noelle Melody. Voice cast includes Kate Berlant, Jamie Loftus, Zak Orth, Jill Talley and Michelle Trachtenberg. Twenty-one 4-10 minute episodes to date. Colour. / On her sixteenth birthday, science nerd Judy Reilly ...
Farrère, Claude
Pseudonym of French naval officer and author Frédéric Charles Pierre Édouard Bargone (1876-1957), who served in the French armed forces throughout World War One; he is known mainly for exoticized "colonial" novels after the model of Pierre Loti (1850-1923). Fumée d'opium (coll of linked stories 1904; trans Samuel Putnam as Black Opium 1929) contains a range of Drug fantasies; ...
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 ...