SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 15 May 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 11 May 2026
Sponsor of the day: John Howard
Suzuki Kōji
(1957-2026) Japanese author and essayist, largely known in English through the Cinema adaptations of several of his books, the international success of which obscured his wide-ranging domestic output. His horror and Equipoisal fiction proceeded in tandem with a wide array (not listed here) of books on young fatherhood and occasional works on motorcycle travel. He was also the translator of Simon Brett's ...
Pavlat, Bob
(1926-1983) US fan and bibliographer, active in Fandom from the early 1940s; a founder in 1947 of the Washington (DC) Science Fiction Association. APAs or amateur press associations to which he belonged included FAPA, where he contributed the Fanzines Bobolings (1950-1982) and Contour (1950-1957; also in OMPA), and SAPS. His ...
Barthelme, Donald
(1931-1989) US author known primarily as a surrealist and black humorist. Most of his short fiction and at least three of his four novels can be described as Fabulations (see also Absurdist SF): Snow White (1967), an absurdist dissection of the fairy tale; The Dead Father (1975), in which the giant figure of a moribund Father is escorted with trauma and ritual to its final resting place; and ...
Broomhead, Reginald
(? -? ) UK author of A Voice from Mars: Adventure and Romance (1923), whose protagonists engage in adventures on Mars, which much resembles our home planet, though a successful Utopian civilization seems to flourish (no details are provided). The tale was written for young readers. [JC]
Talking Heads
US rock band formed in New York in 1975 by vocalist and guitarist David Byrne (1952- ), guitarist and keyboardist Jerry Harrison (1949- ), bassist Tina Weymouth (1950- ) and drummer Chris Frantz (1951- ); active until 1991. Their tight funk-inflected pop-rock, with innovative use of what was at the time called "world music" (particularly African) elements, has proven enduringly influential. "Life During ...
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 ...