SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 10 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 7 July 2025
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
Atom Squad
Juvenile tv series (1953-1954). NBC-TV. Produced by Larry White and Adrian Samish. Directed by Joe Behar. Written by Paul Monash. Cast includes Robert Courtleigh, Bob Hastings, Bram Nossen and Harrison Sheppard. 142 15-minute episodes. Black and white. / The Atom Squad is a top-secret organization protecting the USA from various Cold War-era threats involving radiation or Nuclear Energy, often as the result of sabotage, ...
Perry, Walter Copland
(1814-1911) UK author, lawyer and archaeologist in whose sf novel, The Revolt of the Horses (1898), the Houyhnhnms from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726; rev 1735) arrive in the Near Future England of 1950. Finding humans as terrible as ever – a Future War features in the tale – they decide to destroy the race. [JC]
DeMatteis, John Marc
(1963- ) US author of a Graphic Novel, The Complete Moonshadow (graph 1998) with Jon J Muth, whose eponymous protagonist, born of a hippy and a seemingly nonsubstantial Alien, embarks upon a Fantastic Voyage through the universe, looking for something like truth. [JC]
Sauma, Luiza
(? - ) Brazilian-born author in UK from early childhood, whose sf novel, Everything You Ever Wanted (2019), carries its adult but millennial protagonist from a distressed Near Future Earth via Wormhole on a sponsored one-way emigration, limited to 100 applicants, to the planet Nyx (see Colonization of Other Worlds), which she ...
Collectibles
The tangible objects associated with sf that are sought by collectors fall into three categories. First are authentic artefacts from the genre's past, such as old pulp Magazines, Fanzines, Comic books, rare books, manuscripts, original cover paintings (see Illustration), vintage Toys, and film props, costumes, screenplays, animation cells, posters, and ...
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 ...