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
Captain Marvel
US Comic-book character, in fact a sequence of characters, the first of which to bear the name was created by artist C C Beck (the first to draw the character) and writer Bill Parker. Captain Marvel first appeared in 1940 in Fawcett's Whiz Comics (1940-1953) and then contemporaneously in Fawcett's Captain Marvel Adventures (1941-1953); Jack Kirby and Mac Raboy were among its many later illustrators. Foremost among ...
Klein, Jeffrey Bruce
(1948- ) US investigative journalist, founder-editor of the magazine Mother Jones, and author; in his Near Future sf novel, The Black Hole Affair (1991) as Jeffrey Klein, which reflects his left-wing, anti-government convictions, a reporter discovers a secret government Star Wars project that could either start World War Three, or devastate the planet, or both. [JC]
Walsh, J M
(1897-1952) Australian-born author, in the UK from 1925, active as an author of short fiction from 1913, beginning to publish novels from 1921; from the mid-1920s he wrote primarily mystery stories, some as by Stephen Maddock or George M White; he wrote some romantic adventures as by Jack Carew, and some of his sf as by H Haverstock Hill. Vandals of the Void (Summer 1931 Wonder Stories Quarterly; 1931) and its sequel, "The Struggle for ...
Collins, Dale
(1897-1956) Australian author, mostly of sea stories, sometimes as by Stephen Fennimore or Michael Copeland. Of marginal sf interest are Lost (1933) and Ah, Promised Land (1946), which is a Robinsonade. Race the Sun (1936), perhaps more interestingly, features an advanced aircraft capable of stratospheric flight which circumnavigates the world (see Transportation). [JC]
Without Warning
Film (1980). Heritage Enterprises/Filmways Pictures. Produced and directed by Greydon Clark. Written by Lyn Freeman, Daniel Grodnik, Bennett Trainer, and Steve Mathis. Cast includes Neville Brand, David Caruso, Kevin Peter Hall (credited as Kevin Hall), Martin Landau, Sue Ann Langdon, Ralph Meeker, Cameron Mitchell, Jack Palance and Larry Storch. 89 minutes. Colour. / Three friends, Taylor (Palance), Dobbs (Landau), and Leo (Brand), are on a hunting trip in a US national forest when ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...