SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 18 February 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.
Site updated on 16 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
John W Campbell Memorial Award
Created by Harry Harrison and Brian W Aldiss, this is given annually in July for the best sf novel of the previous year published in English, selected by a committee of academic critics and sf writers. The membership of the jury has undergone a number of changes, and the award has been variously administered from first the USA, then the UK, Ireland, Sweden and then back to the USA at the University of Kansas at Lawrence in ...
Bluejay
Pseudonym of US author Terry Woodrow (? - ), who also edited Lesbian Bedtime Stories (anth 1991). Her sf novel It's Time: A Nuclear Novel (1985) is bylined "Jana Bluejay" on the front cover and copyright page but "Bluejay" only on the title page. The book describes an agrarian feminist Utopia whose existence is constantly under threat from a surrounding oppressive state. [JC]
Künsken, Derek
(1971- ) Canadian author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Tidal Maneuvers" in On Spec for Fall 2006. Most of his later work fits into two connected Hard SF series. The Quantum Universe sequence beginning with The Quantum Magician (January-May 2018 Analog; 2018) follows the life and exploits of a ...
Swan American Magazine
UK slim Pulp magazine, published by G G Swan, London. The two (undated) sf issues in the series, #11 (probably 1948) and #15 (probably 1949), were resettings with UK illustrations of parts of Future Fantasy and Science Fiction (a variant title of Future Fiction), December 1942, and of Science Fiction Quarterly, Winter 1942. This was effectively a postwar renewal, with new ...
Palahniuk, Chuck
Working name of Charles Michael Palahniuk (1962- ), US author of transgressive fiction and Satire, some of whose works apply genre devices disruptive to the mundane modern world in which they are ostensibly set (see Equipoise). A graduate from the University of Oregon School of Journalism, Palahniuk found success with Fight Club: A Novel (1996), one of several works lampooning ...
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 ...