SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 16 September 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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Cook, Rick
Working name of US author James Richard Cook (1944-2022), who began publishing work of genre interest with "Mortality" in Analog for January 1987; he subsequently published several sf stories in this journal, and a very large number of nonfiction pieces on computer technology. As an author of fiction he is most noted for his fantasy, primarily for the Wizard sequence of Technofantasy-tinged tales – beginning with ...
Lovejoy, Jack
(1937-2014) US author with an advanced degree in Roman history who began publishing work of genre interest with The Rebel Witch (1978), a fantasy for children. His first sf novels, Star Gods (dated 1978 but 1979) and The Hunters (1982), combine Space Opera routines with some cultural extrapolation. The Vision of Beasts sequence – Creation Descending (1984), The Second Kingdom ...
Mind Game
Japanese animated film (2004). Based on the Manga by Robin Nishi. Studio 4°C. Directed and written by Masaaki Yuasa. Voice cast includes Takashi Fujii, Koji Imada, Sayaka Maeda and Seiko Takuma. 103 minutes. Colour. / After an opening fast-cut montage, set to ominous music, of events surrounding the life of 20 year old aspiring manga artist Nishi (Imada), we see him running into his old school ...
Baker, Jane
Working name of Iris E E Baker (1924-2014), UK playwright, screenwriter and author, invariably in collaboration with her husband Pip Baker; their first work of genre interest was collaboration on the script for the film Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969) directed by James Hill, followed by a script for one 1976 episode of Space: 1999 (1975-1977). Much of ...
Duka, Ivo
Joint pseudonym of émigré Czech authors Ivo Ducháček (1913-1988) – in the Czech Diplomatic Service in exile during World War Two; later an academic – and his wife Helena Koldová (1928-1997), a photographer and video artist. After a short post-war parliamentary career in Czechoslovakia, Ducháček moved to the US after the Communist takeover in 1948. Ducháček was in charge of the Czech broadcasting department of the Voice of ...
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 ...