SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 7 February 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 6 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Sallis, James
(1944-2026) US musician, poet and author, briefly active in New Worlds during its Michael Moorcock-directed New-Wave phase; he began to publish work of genre interest in this context with "Kazoo" (August 1967 New Worlds) and co-edited the magazine 1968-1969. His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work ...
Spencer, David
(1965- ) US author whose work of sf interest is primarily restricted to his Tie to the Alien Nation universe, Alien Nation #6: Passing Fancy (1994), which is obedient to its requirements. Earlier he wrote the lyrics for Alan Brennert's Weird Romance (first performed 14 June 1992 WPA Theatre, New York). [JC]
Teitelbaum, Michael
(? - ) US author of several Young Adult Ties to various Superhero series or films, including two Spider-Man stories: The Adventures of Spider-Man (2002), novelizing Spider-Man (2002), and Spider-Man 2: Friends and Foes (2004 chap), novelizing Spider-Man 2 ...
Midnight Mystery
US Comic (1961). 7 issues. Best Syndicated Features Inc. Artists include Paul Reinman, John Rosenberger and Ogden Whitney. Most scripts by Richard Hughes (see below). 3 or 4 strips and a one-page text story per issue. Each cover boasts "Astounding supernatural stories! Amazing science fiction! strange secrets!". Stories are a mixture of science fiction (including Science Fantasy), supernatural horror and Fantasy, with a picture and ...
Wallace, Jon
(1954- ) UK author, musician and comedian, working with Jon Cross in the comedy sketch duo Scanida-Hus and recording music as Ompsk and Nosp. He began to publish work of genre interest with "The Walrus and the Icebreaker" in Interzone for July/August 2011; some later stories from 2023 are bylined J Wallace. The Kenstibec sequence comprising Barricade (2014), Steeple (2015) and Rig (2016) ...
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 ...