SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 12 July 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 7 July 2026
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Don't Hug Me I'm Scared
UK puppet and animated webseries (2011-2016; 2022). This Is It. Created and directed by Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan, Writers include Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan. Voice cast includes Sam Campbell, Joseph Pelling, Becky Sloan and Baker Terry. Six 3-8 minute and six 24-minute episodes, plus a pilot. Colour. / Three children's Television characters – Red Guy (Pelling), whose hair obscures his face; the self-explanatory Duck Guy (Terry) ...
New Zealand
One of the last lands discovered by Europeans, New Zealand was a convenient setting for moral and Utopian tales. The anonymous Travels of Hildebrand Bowman ... by Himself (1778), apparently by John Elliott, anticipates Samuel Butler's satirical Erewhon (1872) and Erewhon Revisited (1901). THe first published genre novel by a native New Zealander may be ...
Milosz, Czesław
(1911-2004) Lithuanian-born Polish academic, poet and author, his first and primary language being Polish; mostly resident in Poland from the beginning of World War Two until he went into exile in 1951; in USA for many years; finally resident again in Poland from some point around 1990. The forced exiles of a world-observant intellectual of Milosz's stature through most of the twentieth century signal how savagely and perhaps irremediably Western civilization ...
Rotsler Award
Annual juried award for life achievement in Fanzine art, named for William (Bill) Rotsler in his capacity as a much-loved and highly prolific fan artist. Presented since 1998, the award is sponsored by SCIFI, the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, and is normally announced at the annual Los Angeles Convention Loscon; it currently comes with a $300 honorarium. / The inaugural ...
Mighty Space Miners
Japanese animated OVA (1994-1995; vt Oira Uchuu no Tankoufu). Written by Ritsuko Hayasaka and Umanosuke Iida (as Forsman Ranchfield). Directed by Umanosuke Iida. Produced by Triangle Staff and KSS. Voice cast includes Kappei Yamaguchi. Two 25-minute episodes. Colour / Set in the 2060s on a mining colony carved into the captured Asteroid 4179 Toutatis – effectively a working-class ...
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 ...