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Friday 13 March 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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Newman, Kim
(1959- ) UK author and broadcaster who remains as well known for his film criticism as for his fiction, though the latter has become increasingly dominant in his output. His film books express a generically savvy, sophisticatedly wry vision of their subject matters, a vision also articulated in the weekly reviews he has conducted on television since 1989. Newman began publishing sf with "Dreamers" in Interzone for Summer 1984, rapidly ...
Rawson, Jane
(? - ) Australian journalist, editor and author whose first novel, A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists (2013), allows some gonzo rhapsody to enliven her portrait of late twentieth-century California, but does not quite venture into the fantastic. Formaldehyde (2015) is a rare recent example of Absurdist SF, though laced with ...
Wilson, Leah
(1981- ) US editor – often in collaboration – of several popular essay anthologies dealing with genre authors and productions, beginning with the King Kong-related King Kong Is Back!: An Unauthorized Look at One Humongous Ape! (anth 2005) with David Brin. This was followed by a similar treatment of Star Trek in ...
Janusz A Zajdel Award
Polish Award for Fantastika chosen by Fandom. This was founded in 1984 at Polcon, the Polish national Convention, and initially named Sfinks, to be presented for literary achievements in the field of sf (later also Fantasy) in the preceding calendar year, so the first award for the year 1984 would be given at the 1985 ...
Hussey, David
(1903-1959) UK author of a Utopia, No Sting, No Honey (1938), set on a South Pacific Island where women, following rigid Eugenic precepts, have transformed themselves into the dominant sex (see Feminism); the society itself is organized like a bee hive. Some of the Club Stories assembled in Fort Carteret (coll of linked stories ...
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 ...