SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 17 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 16 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Hambrook, Emerson C
Pseudonym of UK author George Makgill (1868-1926), whose Future War novel, The Red To-Morrow (1920), traces the consequences of a 1942 war against Germany, as Jews and immigrants riot in the streets of London, almost bringing down a decent government. There are moments of Satire throughout, directed at targets, including George Bernard Shaw, whom the ...
Checklist of Abbreviations
Abbreviations listed below in bold face are explained at greater length in Editorial Practices. Abbreviations marked as links also have their own entries, to which the link goes and where they are more fully explained. / «title» – a projected or ghost title # – number Amazing – Amazing Stories anth – ...
Messmann, Jon
(1920-2004) US author perhaps best remembered for creating and writing as by Jon Sharpe most of the first 200 instalments of The Trailsman sequence of nonfantastic Westerns [not listed below]; this pseudonym eventually became a House Name. Much of Messmann's other nonfantastic work, for which no adequate bibliographical coverage exists, was written under various pseudonyms and house names, including Nick ...
Johnny Jupiter
US tv series (1953-1954). Kagran and Stone Associates for DuMont Television Network/ABC Television Network. Created by Martin Stone. Produced by Stone, Jerome Coopersmith. Directors included Frank Bunetta, Ben Gradus and Howard Magwood. Writers included Coopersmith, William Kendall Clarke and Sam Rockingham. Cast includes Cliff Hall, Wright King, Gilbert Mack, Pat Peardon and Vaughn Taylor. Voice cast: Coopersmith, Carl Harms and Gil Mack. Puppeteers: Harms, Gene London (as Phil London). ...
Slater, Robert L
(1967- ) US teacher and author who began to publish work of genre interest with the first installation of a book-length story, "Jack and the Beanstalk" in Galactic Citizen #2 for January 1993, the last of five instalments appearing in June 1994. His Young Adult Deserted Lands sequence beginning with All Is Silence (2014) is set in a post-Pandemic (see ...
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 ...