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Wednesday 30 April 2025
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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Broderick, Damien
(1944-2025) Australian author, editor and critic; he had a PhD in the semiotics of fiction, science and sf with special reference to the work of Samuel R Delany. He edited four anthologies of Australian sf: The Zeitgeist Machine (anth 1977), Strange Attractors (anth 1985), Matilda at the Speed of Light (anth 1988) and Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (anth ...
New Weird
Term apparently coined by M John Harrison in his introduction to China Miéville's The Tain (2002 chap), titled "China Miéville and the New Weird". It was taken up by Miéville himself in a guest editorial for The Third Alternative (Summer 2003), describing that magazine's general ambience but later understood as a supposed subgenre whose ...
Peterson, Margaret
(1883-1933) Indian author, in UK from 1910, also periodically in Uganda, active from 1914. At least three of her many novels have some sf interest: Deadly Nightshade (1924), a Lost Race tale in which a civilization of Ancient Egyptians is discovered in Africa, guarded by a race of ape-people (see Apes as Human) and ruled by a She figure; ...
Ikeda Noriaki
(1955- ) Japanese author and producer, sometimes operating under the working name Kenshō Ikeda, an alternate reading of the characters that spell his name. A graduate in Literature from Komazawa University, he first gained attention as a critic and chronicler of Japan's distinctive Tokusatsu genre, in which rubber monsters and super-sized heroes duel in the streets of a model Tokyo. His magazine column "SF Hero ...
Wood, James Playsted
(1905-1983) US teacher, editor and author whose works included a range of nonfiction as well as tales for the children and the Young Adult market. Of sf interest is The Mammoth Parade (1969), in which an eccentric entrepreneur discovers a Siberian Mammoth (see Prehistoric SF) in Rhode Island, and goes to ground with it in Central Park (see New York). Some ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...