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Monday 23 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 23 February 2026
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Under the Sea
The world under the sea is an alien environment still in the process of being explored. John Wilkins, in Mathematicall Magick (1648), offered speculative designs for submarines and discussed the possibility of underwater colonization; already, in about 1620, Cornelius Van Drebbell (1572-1633) had successfully navigated a submarine rowing-boat in the Thames, and before the end of the century another would-be submariner had perished in Plymouth ...
2 + 5: Missione Hydra
Film (1966; vt Star Pilot). Golden Motion Pictures. Directed by Pietro Francisci. Written by Pietro Francisci, based on a story by Fernando Paolo Girolami. English screenplay by Ian Danby. Cast includes Nando Angelini, Giovanni de Angelis, Roland Lesaffre, Leontine May, Kirk Morris, Mario Novelli and Leonora Ruffo. 89 minutes. Colour. / A Spaceship from the constellation Hydra crashes in Sardinia and is buried for two years, forcing its ...
Magill, Frank N
(1907-1997) US author and editor of reference works published by Salem Press, which Magill himself founded in 1949 and ran until his retirement in 1996. Of particular interest is his nominal editorship of the huge but uneven Survey of Science Fiction Literature [for subtitle see Checklist] (anth 1979 5vols) and Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature (anth 1983 5vols), for the most part edited anonymously by Keith Neilson (whom see for ...
Tatăr, Doru
(1956- ) Romanian civil engineer and author in whose sf novel, Prioritate Zero (1990; trans Raymond Humphreys and Petru Iamandi as Top Priority 2011), a tale of Cosmology in which the implosion into the universe of a vast Black Hole leads to a human/Alien interaction whose outcome is likely to generate a something like a new ...
Long, Charles R
(1904-1978) US author whose two routine sf novels are Infinite Brain (1957) and The Eternal Man (1964). Both are filled with action, the first on a distant planet, the second on an Earth where Immortality is shared by both humans and Aliens. [JC]
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 ...