SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 13 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.
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Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
Britz-Cunningham, Scott
(? - ) US radiologist and author whose first novel, the Near Future Code White (2013), traces the attempt of a daring neurosurgeon to implant a Computer into the brain of a blind lad, who will be enabled to see; obstacles mount. Interface (2022) continues thematically from Code White in its examination of the political implications of a neural implant that ...
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The
US Digest-size magazine; published Fall 1949 to the present. The first issue was titled simply The Magazine of Fantasy. Until February 1958 published by Fantasy House, Inc, a subsidiary of Mercury Publications, then by Mercury Press until January 2001, then by Gordon Van Gelder's Spilogale, Inc; Lawrence E Spivak (1900-1994) was Publisher from Fall 1949 to July 1954, Joseph W Ferman ...
Weird Circle, The
Radio series (1943-1945), RCA Recording Services. Syndicated for the Mutual Broadcasting System and the NBC Red Radio Network. Staff writers included Peggy Mayer. Announcers/narrators: unknown. 79 30-minute episodes. / Primarily a Horror, mystery and suspense anthology series, The Weird Circle also offered some adaptations of early sf stories. These include The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket ...
Keyes, Noel
Pseudonym of British-born US author and anthologist David Noel Keightley (1932-2017), whose Contact (anth 1963) is a theme Anthology dealing with meetings of humans and Aliens (see First Contact). According to L W Currey, Sam Moskowitz "served as an anonymous collaborator and selected some of the contents". [PN/DRL]
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 ...