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Thursday 13 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.
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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 ...
Beebee, Chris
(? - ) UK author known exclusively for his Cipola sequence – comprising The Hub (1987) and The Main Event (1989) – which is set in the twenty-first century on Earth and in a Space Habitat. The world of the sequence is dominated by Computers, and trouble brews when the GRAIL programs go missing; the protagonist tries to cope. [JC]
Big Man Japan
Japanese film (2007). Original title Dai Nipponjin. Directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto. Written by Hitoshi Matsumoto and Mitsuyoshi Takasu. Cast includes Shion Machida, Hitoshi Matsumoto, Daisuke Miyagawa and Taichi Yazaki. 114 minutes. Colour. / A documentary crew are following Masaru Daisatou (Matsumoto), an unprepossessing middle-aged man with a fondness for folding umbrellas: "they only get big when you need them to" (a similar remark is made ...
Joshi, S T
(1958- ) Writer, critic, publisher and editor best known for his bibliographic and critical work on H P Lovecraft. Born in India, S T Joshi emigrated with his family to Illinois in 1963. After graduating from Brown University in 1980 and obtaining an MA degree there in 1982, Joshi left two years into his PhD under a Paul Elmer More fellowship in classical philosophy and in 1984 obtained an editorial position at Chelsea House Publishers, ...
Chadwick, Paul
(1902-1972) US Pulp author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Crusaders of Space" in Amazing Stories Quarterly for Fall/Winter 1932. He is best known for his creation of the character Secret Agent "X" in the short lead novel "The Torture Trust" in Secret Agent "X" for February 1934 under the pseudonym Brant House, which became a ...
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 ...