SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 10 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.
Site updated on 7 September 2026
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Westerns
The Western is dead: to begin with. In its pure form, unlike other genres of popular fiction, nonfantastic Westerns, also known as horse operas from the teens of the twentieth century, take place in a specific area or Zone of the world during the brief span between that point when whites began to conquer the Territory and that point when, fatally, they succeeded. The first Western stories, James Fenimore Cooper's nonfantastic ...
Killer Ape
Film (1953). Columbia Pictures. Produced by Sam Katzman. Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennett (credited as Spencer G Bennett). Written by Samuel Newman based on the Comics character Jungle Jim created by Alex Raymond. Cast includes Nestor Paiva, Max Palmer, Carol Thurston, Johnny Weissmuller and Burt Wenland. 68 minutes. Black and white. / In southeastern Asia, adventurer Jungle Jim notices various wild animals acting ...
Andrews, John Williams
(1898-1975) US poet whose book-length sf poem, A.D. Twenty-One Hundred: A Narrative of Space (1969 chap) (see Poetry), is a kind of Future History of the next century or so, tracing the sophistication of Space Flight as the Moon is settled and Faster Than Light starships explore the Godless void; the poem closes in a ...
Ross, Malcolm
(1895-1965) US author and reporter, the protagonist of whose Time in Reverse sf novel, The Man Who Lived Backward (1950), lives from 1940 to 1865, dying just after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which he is therefore unable to prevent. [JC]
Bessière, Richard
(1923-2011) French author of much sf, initially as F Richard-Bessière, then as Richard-Bessière, finally under his name properly spelled; and spy thrillers as by F-H Ribes. Series of works not yet translated – little of his work has appeared in English – include the Conquérants de l'Universe ["Conquerors of the Universe"] a Fantastic Voyage sequence of Space Operas, beginning 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 ...