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Wednesday 18 February 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 16 February 2026
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Hawke, Napier
(? -? ) UK author of a Future War tale, The Invasion That Did Not Come Off (1909). [JC]
Cordova, Jason
(1978- ) US author, much of whose work, being fantasy or weird fiction, is not here discussed or listed, though he entered the fields of the fantastic with The Warp sequence, beginning with Corruptor (2010), in which a problematic computer game (see Computer Role Playing Game) infects Virtual Reality. The Homeworld sequence beginning with The Hand of God ...
Ryan, Thomas J
(1942- ) Canadian author, later in US, in whose sf novel The Adolescence of P-1 (1977) the titular Computer exceeds its design specifications, evolves into a sentient AI which interestingly attempts to gain sapience and power by establishing a distributed network of slaved versions of itself through the planetary telecommunications system (see Internet), and then must decide ...
Phantasm
Film (1978). New Breed. Directed, produced, written and photographed by Don Coscarelli. Cast includes Michael Baldwin, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm and Bill Thornbury. 90 minutes, cut to 89 minutes. Colour. / At the independent, low-budget, exploitation end of the movie market, small miracles sometimes occur that could not take place inside a major studio. Phantasm is one such, a spirited blend of Horror, surrealism and sf, in which the ...
Carrère, Jean
(1865-1932) French journalist, poet and author, of some sf interest for a novel published at the end of his active career, La Fin d'Atlantis ou le grand soir ["The End of Atlantis or the Great Evening"] (1926; trans Brian Stableford as The End of Atlantis 2017). The novel is remarkable not for any originality concerning the collapse of the Empire of Atlantis into the sea, but for a sustained ...
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 ...