SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 15 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 14 July 2025
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Out of This World [magazine]
UK Digest-format magazine published by John Spencer and Co; edited by Samuel Assael and Maurice Nahum. Billed as "bi-monthly" but two issues only, October 1954 and January 1955. / This short-lived weird-fiction venture from the Badger Books stable is principally notable for the fact that the entire contents of both issues – each comprising five novelettes ...
Xu Zhuodai
Pen-name of Xu Fulin (1880-circa 1958), who flourished as a humorist during the 1920s in the cosmopolitan Chinese city of Shanghai, gaining the sobriquet Huaji Dafu ["The Master of Laughter"]. Among his other professions, he ran a school for acrobats, was a sometime playwright and translator, dabbled in the nascent film business, and even set up a soy sauce factory. / Among his many works of film reviews, essays and short stories, Yingxixue ...
3rd Rock from the Sun
US tv series (1996-2001). Created by Bonnie and Terry Turner. Producers include the Turners, Bill Martin, Mike Schiff, Marcy Carsey, and Caryn Mandabach. Directors include Terry Hughes, Robert Berlinger, and James Burrows. Writers include the Turners, Martin, Schiff, Christine Zander and Bob Kushell. Cast includes Jane Curtin (Dr Mary Albright), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Tommy Solomon), Kristen Johnston (Sally Solomon), Wayne Knight (Officer Don Orville), John Lithgow (Dick Solomon) and ...
Nichols, Nichelle
Working name of US singer, dancer and actor Grace Dell Nichols (1932-2022), best known for her role as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura in the original Star Trek (1966-1969) series and its very many spinoffs. Her first venture into genre fiction was the novelette "Surprise!" with Myrna Culbreath and Sondra Marshak in Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 (anth 1978) edited by Culbreath and ...
Serling, Rod
Working name of US screenwriter and Television producer Rodman Edward Serling (1924-1975), younger brother of Robert Serling, married to Carol Serling from 1948 until his death; best known for the Television series The Twilight Zone (1959-1964), for which he won three Hugos in 1960, 1961 ...
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 ...