SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 10 April 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.
Site updated on 6 April 2026
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Barlowe, Wayne Douglas
(1958- ) US illustrator whose successful Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials (graph 1979; rev vt Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials: Great Aliens from Science Fiction Literature 1987), in collaboration with Ian Summers and the uncredited Beth Meacham (who wrote the text), was published when he was twenty-one, only two years after he had made his first sale, a cover for ...
Bishop, David
(1966- ) New Zealand-born editor and author now resident in the UK; before 2000 he edited at least two UK Comics: Judge Dredd Megazine and 2000 AD. He has since written Ties for Judge Dredd, Doctor Who and Nikolai Dante [see Checklist below] and scripted adventure storylines for The ...
Onions, Oliver
(1873-1961) UK commercial artist, illustrator and author, active in various genres since 1899; married to Berta Ruck from 1909 until his death; he served in the Royal Engineers during World War One; in 1918 he legally changed his name to George Oliver but continued to write as Onions. He is best remembered for powerfully disturbing tales of ghosts and supernatural horrors, such as The Beckoning Fair One (in ...
Costello, P F
One of the many Ziff-Davis House Names, this appeared on over 40 magazine stories 1941-1958, but until the late 1940s was used exclusively for stories by William P McGivern – indeed it was his personal pen-name until he was called up. It was then sometimes used by Chester S Geier, later by Roger P Graham (Rog Phillips) ...
Armenia
A full entry for sf in Armenia must await a contributor fluent in its language and able to report from the inside on the development of the genre there, and on untranslated works. Relevant authors given entries in this encyclopedia are Michael Arlen, of Bulgarian-Armenian origin; the Turkish-Armenia-born US Gregory Casparian; Mariam Petrosyan; and G ...
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 ...