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Saturday 11 April 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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Bermúdez, María Elvira
(1916-1988) Mexican editor, academic and author; her fiction, mostly detective novels, is mostly nonfantastic. She is of sf interest (see Women SF Writers) primarily for an influential Anthology, Cuentos Fantásticos Mexicanos ["Mexican Fantastic Tales"] (anth 1986), which presents some of her own work. Contributors with entries in this encyclopedia include Juan José ...
Richardson, Frank
(1870-1917) UK barrister and author, mostly of light fiction; he was the coiner of the term "face-fungus" to describe whiskers. The Bayswater Miracle (1903) mildly examines Gender issues through an Identity Exchange between a man and a woman; though it lacks any sf rationale, it is unusual in that the exchange is irreversible, with the reluctant male narrator, now physically female, marrying his sweetheart, who is ...
Thun'da, King of the Congo
US Comic (1952-1953; vt Thun'da). Magazine Enterprises. 6 issues numbered #1-#6. Artists Frank Frazetta and Bob Powell. Script writer Gardner Fox. Cave Girl, from the same publisher, is also discussed in this entry and had 4 issues (1953-1954, numbered #11-#14), with Powell's and Fox's involvement. Both comics had 36 pages with 4 long strips; unusually, there are no short text stories. Aside from their first ...
Glut, Donald F
(1944- ) US author who was the uncredited co-editor of Modern Monsters in 1966. His first publications of interest were such nonfiction studies as The Frankenstein Legend (1973) – the first of several fictional and nonfictional books on the Frankenstein Monster (see also Mary Shelley) – and The Dracula Book ...
Gall, Chris
(? - ) US illustrator and author, active from around 2004, most of his titles being picture books for younger readers, in an animation-friendly heavily linear style reminiscent of the work of Ron Cobb. While intended for his usual audience, the spoofish Prehistoric SF premise of the Dinotrux series beginning with Dinotrux (2009) – that ...
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 ...