SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 8 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 7 July 2025
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Zappa, Frank
(1940-1993) US composer, singer and guitarist. Of Zappa's seventy-five albums (many credited to "Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention") some include references to Pulp-magazine heroics and monstrosities that are recognizably sf. Zappa was always happiest juxtaposing avant-garde classical, experimental, chart-pop and popular culture more generally, as in his extended jazz-fusion "King Kong" (on Uncle Meat, 1969), a version, obviously, of ...
Lawrence, Louise
Pseudonym of Elizabeth Rhoda Holden (1943-2013), UK author who began publishing Young Adult sf with Andra (1971), and who early became noted for the marked and sensitive intelligence of her settings and characters. Both of her novel series – the Wyndcliffe sequence, comprising The Wyndcliffe (1974) and Sing and Scatter Daisies (1977), and the Llandor sequence, comprising Journey Through Llandor ...
Firefly
US tv series (2002). Mutant Enemy for 20th Century Fox Television. Created by Joss Whedon. Producers include Whedon, Tim Minear, and Ben Edlund. Directors include Whedon, Minear, and Vern Gillum. Writers include Whedon, Minear, Edlund, Jose Molina, and Jane Espenson. Cast includes Nathan Fillion as Malcolm Reynolds, Gina Torres as Zoe Washburn, Alan Tudyk as Hoban "Wash" Washburn, Jewel Staite as Kaylee Frye, Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb, Morena Baccarin as ...
Kukalis, Romas B
(1956- ) American artist, born in Canada, who usually identifies himself simply as Romas and has also used his full name, Romas Brandt Kukalis. As a child he moved to the United States, and in 1989 he officially became an American citizen. After training at the Paier College of Art in Connecticut, he did some early Comic illustration for Creepy, Eerie, Heavy Metal, and Conan the Barbarian. He ...
Terrall, Robert
(1914-2009) US journalist and author almost exclusively of thrillers, sometimes as by John Gonzales or Robert Kyle; he also wrote at least twenty Michael Shayne adventures under the House Name Brett Halliday. He is of sf interest for A Killer Is Loose Among Us (1948), a Near Future medical thriller set in an Army research laboratory, where the development of a deadly new plague (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 ...