SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 8 August 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 3 August 2026
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Chainsaw Man
Japanese animated tv series (2022). MAPPA. Based on the Manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Directed by Ryū Nakayama and Masato Nakazono. Written by Hiroshi Seko. Voice cast includes Fairouz Ai, Mariya Ise, Tomori Kusunoki, Shogo Sakata, Karin Takahashi and Kikunosuke Toya. Twelve 24-minute episodes. Colour. / In the late 1990s Earth is plagued by Devils, Monsters that embody humanity's fears (see ...
Dewdney, A K
(1941- ) Canadian mathematician and computer scientist whose sf novel, The Planiverse: Computer Contact with a Two-Dimensional World (1984), intriguingly updates Edwin A Abbott's Flatland (1884); its Flatland protagonist, Yndrd, attempts to penetrate from his world of Arde into an epiphanous "reality beyond reality", making contact as he does with a ...
Gilson, Charles
(1878-1943) UK soldier and author, who sometimes signed early books as Captain Charles Gilson and later publications as Major Charles Gilson, and whose tales for young male English readers are riddled with the class, racial and imperialist assumptions of his era. He is best known for fantasies like The Cat and the Curate: A Phenomenal Experience (1934), in which a Cat is transformed into a seductive Middle Eastern lady, and for ...
Jarry, Alfred
(1873-1907) French author who carried the fruits of his scientific education into his surreal avant-garde writing, particularly the influence of the French evolutionary philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941). Jarry's famous play Ubu roi [for subtitle see Checklist] (performed 1896; 1896; trans 1951) and its several sequels including "Ubu enchaîné" (1900 Revue Blanche; trans B Keith and G Legman as King Turd 1953) – helped found the ...
Gibbs, Henry
(1909-1975) UK artist, journalist and author, of whose many novels – several set in South Africa – Pawns in Ice (1948) is of sf interest for its depiction of Arctic explorers held in thrall by a strange Ray. [JC]
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 ...