SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 15 July 2025
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 14 July 2025
Sponsor of the day: Stuart Hopen
Masters of Science Fiction
US tv series (2007; vt Stephen Hawking's Sci-Fi Masters). IDT Entertainment, Industry Entertainment, MOSF Productions, Reunion Pictures, for ABC. Producers include Ben Browning, Brendan Ferguson and Adam Goldworm. Directors: Harold Becker, Jonathan Frakes, Michael Petroni, Mark Rydell and Michael Tolkin. Writers: Sam Egan, Harlan Ellison, Josh Olson, Darnell Martin, Michael Petroni and Michael ...
Captain Nice
US tv series (1967). Talent Associates and Paramount Television with NBC Productions for NBC-TV. Created by Buck Henry. Produced by Jay Sandrich. Executive Producer Henry. Directors included Gary Nelson, Charles Rondeau, and Gene Reynolds. Writers included Henry, Stan Burns, David Ketchum, and Martin Ragaway. Cast includes William Daniels, Alice Ghostley, Ann Prentiss and Bill Zuzkert (Chief Segal). Liam Dunn and Byron Foulger appeared at times as Mayor Finney and Mr Nash respectively. ...
Wimhurst, Katy
( - ) UK author who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Almost-Adventures of Immaculada Toadstool" in Kaleidotrope for April 2009. Most of her more recent work has been assembled as Snapshots of the Apocalypse and Other Stories (coll 2022), where a deftly learned use of the fantasticated literalism of Magic Realism – her doctorate is in Mexican iterations of that analogue of ...
McHugh, Vincent
(1904-1983) US poet, journalist and author whose comic saga Caleb Catlum's America (1936) [for subtitle see Checklist] is about a family of immortals (see Immortality) who amusingly represent the high points of US history in the flesh (the family includes Abe Lincoln and Davy Crockett); elements of a Secret History of the World are undercut by Tall Tale elements [for Fantasies of History and Tall Tale see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under ...
Service, Robert W
(1874-1958) UK-born poet and author, in Canada (mostly in the Yukon Territory) between 1896 and 1912, where much of his exceedingly popular verse was set, the most famous of his collections being Songs of a Sourdough (coll 1907) and Rhymes of a Rolling Stone (coll 1912); the not entirely fortunate influence of his poetry – when read aloud, as usual – can still be registered in the sf Poetry of a century later. After 1912, ...
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 ...