SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 10 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 9 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Carver, Jeffrey A
(1949-2026) US author who began publishing sf with "... Of No Return" in Fiction Magazine for 1974. His first novel, Seas of Ernathe (1976), which serves as an introduction to the loose Star Rigger sequence of Space Operas, showed early signs of a love of plot and thematic complexity which would take him some time, and several novels, to control. The continuation, Star Rigger's Way (1978), for instance, combines quest ...
Batman [tv]
US tv series (1966-1968). Greenway Productions/ 20th Century-Fox/ABC. Produced by Howie Horwitz; executive producer William Dozier; directed by Robert Butler and many others. Writers: Lorenzo Semple Jr, Henry Slesar and many others. Based on the Comic-book characters created by Bob Kane. Cast includes John Astin (The Riddler), Tallulah Bankhead (The Black Widow), Anne Baxter (Zelda), Milton ...
Brother from Another Planet, The
Film (1984). A-Train Films. Directed John Sayles. Written by Sayles. Cast includes Caroline Aaron, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Joe Morton and Tom Wright. 108 minutes. Colour. / Where Sayles's exploitation-movie scripts are cynical and hard-edged, the films he directs himself are gentler and also more overtly political. The Brother from Another Planet is the only sf film he has written and directed, and to a degree it gets the best of both worlds, ...
British Fantasy Award
1. Sf Award (1966-1967), the predecessor of the BSFA Award. This short-lived award was sponsored by the British Science Fiction Association and took the form of a shield initially presented "to the person or organization which, in the voted opinion of the Association, has made the best contribution to speculative fiction in the preceding calendar year". Nominations were ...
Man Who Turned to Stone, The
Film (1957). Clover Productions/Columbia Pictures. Directed by László Kardos. Produced by Sam Katzman. Written by Bernard Gordon. Cast includes Charlotte Austin, Tina Carver, Paul Cavanagh, Ann Doran, William Hudson, Victor Jory, George Lynn, Victor Varconi, Friedrich von Ledebur (credited as Frederick Ledebur) and Jean Willes. 71 minutes. Black and white. / Social worker Adams (Austin) and her romantic interest, state psychiatrist Dr Jess Rogers (Hudson), grow ...
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 ...