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
Branley, Franklyn M
(1915-2002) US scientist and author, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, 1968-1972. Most of his approximately 200 works of nonfiction, many of them concerning Astronomy and Space Flight, were written for the Young Adult market [see highly selected list below]. His one sf novel, the Young Adult ...
Space Man
US Comic (1962-1963). Dell Comics. Seven issues (but see below). Artists include Jack Sparling. Scriptwriters include Ken Fitch. 36 pages: issues featured a long Space Man story, with a few one-page, usually factual, pieces; from #3 there was also a 4 page series called the Space Hogs (though not so named in #3), about a space courier company. / For ten years the mysterious "anti-force" (see ...
Voivod
Canadian metal band formed in 1982, and still active through numerous line-up changes; the band name has also been spelt Voïvod. Most of their albums have sf-themed songs, beginning with Killing Technology (1987). The title track is a warning over space Weaponry, while "Forgotten in Space" is a bleak tale of a Prison Spaceship. Dimension Hatröss ...
Tregaskis, Richard
(1916-1973) US war correspondent and author, best known for his first book, the nonfiction Guadalcanal Diary (1943). He is of sf interest for a Near Future Technothriller, China Bomb (1967), in which an elite team of commandos must dismantle a Chinese H-bomb before it can destroy the American Seventh Fleet. [JC]
Siegele, H H
(1883-1983) US author, mostly of nonfiction works on carpentry and building in general; Pushing Buttons (1946 chap) is a short Lost Race tale. [JC]
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 ...