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Sunday 16 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 10 August 2026
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Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
Kerner, Charlotte
(1950- ) German author of fiction and nonfiction primarily for the Young Adult market. Titles not yet translated include Geboren 1999: Eine Zukunftsgeschichte ["Born 1999: A Future History"] (1991) and Kopflos ["Headless"] (2008). Blueprint/Blaupause (1999; trans Elizabeth D Crawford as Blueprint 2000), filmed as Blueprint (2003), depicts the ...
Summers, Ian
(1939- ) US author, designer, editor and book packager specializing in sf art books; he began to publish work of genre interest with Tomorrow and Beyond: Masterpieces of Science Fiction Art (graph coll 1978), which assembles more than 300 paintings, mostly created as sf or fantasy book covers and here presented without cover text. This received a Locus Award as best art book, as did Summers' subsequent project ...
Bramwell, James
(1911-1995) UK playwright, teacher and author, who also wrote as by James Byrom; his Utopia, Going West (1935), is set on a Mediterranean Island newly created by a deity disgruntled with humanity's record and prospects; the story, uneasily Equipoised between genres, ends in disaster, and the Brave New World – William Shakespeare's The Tempest ...
Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters
Japanese film (1968). Original title Yōkai Hyaku Monogatari. Daiei Film. Directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda. Written by Tetsurō Yoshida. Cast includes Jun Fujimaki, Ryûtarô Gomi and Takashi Kanda. 80 minutes. Colour. / During the Edo period of Japan, landowner Mr Tajimaya (Kanda), working for the magistrate Lord Uzen of Hotta (Gomi), buys a local village's shrine. He plans to tear it down and build a brothel in its place; the caretaker ...
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 ...