SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 8 August 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 3 August 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Woodroffe, Patrick
(1940-2014) UK illustrator, artist and author, whose academic background was in modern languages; he taught French and German for several years until the popularity of his paintings allowed him to focus exclusively on his art. His early sf book covers stood out for a number of reasons: an appealingly childlike aura, unusual creativity, meticulous attention to detail, and bright, surprising colours. It is difficult to single out particular examples, but his cover for the 1973 paperback edition ...
Babylon Zoo
Short-lived UK pop group founded in Wolverhampton in 1992, who enjoyed chart success with their single "Spaceman" (1996), a number one chart hit in 23 countries including the UK. The song, a glamrock expression of yearning to become an "intergalactic" astronaut, is memorable for its speeded-up opening and closing sections in which singer and writer Jas Mann's (1971- ) usually thrumming voice is rendered squeaky and alien. Two albums, including one ( ...
Du Bois, Gaylord
(1899-1993) US Comics writer, with over 3000 comic-book scripts credited to him under his own (which he also gave as DuBois) and other names, including Hal Forrest and Buck Wilson; he also wrote a number of Big Little Books. He specialized in non-fantastic animal stories, and in Westerns, and his work in the fantastic is generally restricted to cartoon characters like Raggedy Ann or ...
Flinn, Denny Martin
(1947-2007) US author of a Star Trek Tie, Star Trek: The Fearful Summons (1995); he also co-scripted, with Nicholas Meyer, the screenplay for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). [JC/DRL]
George, Brian
(? - ) UK author in whose sf novel, Atom of Doubt (1959), a fake hormonal treatment which ostensibly makes women irresistible to men turns out to be real, and causes some chaos; there are elements of Satire in the tale. [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 ...