SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 22 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.
Site updated on 21 April 2025
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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 ...
Collin de Plancy, Jacques
(1793-1881) French demonologist and author, born without the aspirational "de Plancy", though he used the full name for much of his life; best known for his Dicionnaire Infernal ["Dictionary of the Infernal"] (1818), which he added and republished in various forms over several decades. He is of Proto SF interest for ...
Hanstein, Otfrid von
(1869-1959) German actor and author, prolific in various genres; of his sf novels, several were published in America in the 1930s, not in book form but translated under the aegis of Hugo Gernsback for Wonder Stories and Wonder Stories Quarterly. The translated stories are: Die Farm des Verschollenen: Phantatischer Roman (1924; trans ...
Scieszka, Jon
(1954- ) US author best known for his numerous picture books for younger children, often reworkings of fantasy and folk tale materials [not given in the Checklist below]. He is of sf interest primarily for two series, the Time Warp Trio tales for younger readers, beginning with Knights of the Kitchen Table (1991 chap), in which a mysterious Book serves as a Time Machine, bringing the three young protagonists to a ...
Dicks, Terrance
(1935-2019) UK scriptwriter, editor, and author, best known for his involvement in various capacities over many years with Doctor Who (see this entry for more details). His career as scriptwriter for this BBC television series began in the late 1960s with rewrite work on episodes 3-6 of Brian Hayles's season-six storyline The Seeds of Death (25 January-1 March 1969), later in the season he was jointly credited with ...
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 ...