SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 6 October 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 October 2026
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Edwards, Malcolm
(1949-2026) UK editor, critic and publisher, educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in anthropology. Active in UK sf Fandom in the 1970s and early 1980s, he published the first complete text of James Blish's "The Science in Science Fiction" (May 1951-May 1952 Science Fiction Quarterly) in his Fanzine Quicksilver #2 in 1971; edited the ...
Gurgu, Costi
(1969- ) Romanian author, in Canada from around 2000, active from the early 1990s. His first novel, Retetarium (2006; author's English-language version as RecipeArium 2017), is an exorbitantly intense fantasy set in a Kingdom whose males depend for pleasure, and the chance of Immortality, on their sense of smell, as shaped and stimulated by artists known as Recipears; the protagonist ...
Hunger, Anna
(? - ) US author of The Man Who Lived Forever (March 1938 Astounding as "The Master Shall Not Die!" as by R DeWitt Miller alone; exp 1956 dos; vt Year 3097 1958) with R DeWitt Miller, in which humanity an aeon hence is pitted against the machine (see Immortality; ...
Baker, Pip
Working name of UK playwright, scriptwriter and author Philip Baker (1929-2020), almost always in collaboration with his wife, Jane Baker; their first work of genre interest was collaboration on the script for the film Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969) directed by James Hill, followed by a script for one 1976 episode of Space: 1999 (1975-1977). Other relevant work included four 1980s ...
Kamkondo, Dede
Working name of the acclaimed and versatile Malawian author Wisdom C Kamkondo (1957-2006), who studied sociology, literature and linguistics in Malawi and Wales, and was later a lecturer at the University of Malawi. He also worked as a consultant for the World Bank, USAid, etc. In 1995 he came to the US on a Fullbright scholarship to study at Michigan State University, but did not complete his studies owing to illness. Versatile, and acclaimed during his lifetime, he wrote numerous short ...
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 ...