SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 7 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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King, Rufus
(1893-1966) US author, mostly of detective fiction, in whose complicated sf novel, The Fatal Kiss Mystery (1928), two young lovers are entangled and separated and reunited by an Invention the formula for whose development they find in a trunk and whose effect – the total disappearance of those exposed to its rays – is explained either in terms of Invisibility or other ...
Keating, H R F
(1926-2011) UK author, active from the late 1950s, almost all of his work being detective novels, notably those featuring Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID, though he also wrote some ghost stories. Novels of sf interest include The Strong Man (1971), a Dystopian tale set on the Atlantic Island of Oceana south of Ireland; its name echoes George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four ...
Lederer, William J
(1912-2009) US soldier and author, most famous for a nonfantastic novel, The Ugly American (1958) with Eugene L Burdick. Of sf interest is Sarkhan (1965; vt The Deceptive American 1977) with Eugene L Burdick, a Near Future tale set in the fictional South-East Asian state of Sarkhan featured in The Ugly American, and now subject to Communist ...
Around the World under the Sea
Film (1966). Ivan Tors Productions/MGM. Directed by Andrew Marton. Written by Arthur Weiss, Art Arthur. Cast includes Lloyd Bridges, Shirley Eaton and David McCallum. 120 minutes. Colour. / This routine Under-the-Sea melodrama was produced by Ivan Tors, best known for such marine television series as Flipper. After tidal waves, underwater experts use a futuristic submarine to plant a series of earthquake-warning devices along a fault that ...
Gear, Kathleen O'Neal
(1954- ) US author with extensive training in American prehistory; married to W Michael Gear from 1982. Her first sf, the Powers of Light trilogy – An Abyss of Light (1990), Treasure of Light (1991) and Redemption of Light (1991) – was published as by Kathleen M O'Neal. With an occasionally oppressive relentlessness about the moral and theological issues involved, it presents ...
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 ...