SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 5 June 2023
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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.
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Newman, Paul S
(1924-1999) US author who scripted the first Tom Corbett comic strip, based on Tom Corbett: Space Cadet (1950-1955) and published on 9 September 1951. His novel Alien Missile Threat (1967) is an unremarkable Tie to the Television series The Invaders (1967-1968). His only recorded short sf is "Hill of the Flashing Light" in ...
Hubschman, Thomas
(1941- ) US author of two Space Opera adventures, Alpha-II (dated 1979 but 1980) and Space Ark (1981); the latter attempts, with some ambition, to conflate complex Apes as Human issues on a threatened Earth some time in the future, but tends to melodramatics that, in the light of the New Space Opera now ascendant, seem simplistic. [JC]
Night of the Big Heat
Film (1967; vt Island of the Burning Damned). Planet. Directed by Terence Fisher. Written by Ronald Liles, Pip Baker, Jane Baker, based on The Night of the Big Heat (1959) by John Lymington. Cast includes Patrick Allen, Peter Cushing, Sarah Lawson, Christopher Lee and Jane Merrow. 97 minutes, cut to 94 minutes. Colour. / An island off the UK coast experiences a freak heatwave, during which there are a number of mysterious ...
Jahn, Mike
Working name of US journalist and author Joseph Michael Jahn (1943- ), who also writes as Michael Jahn, and most of whose work of sf interest was in Ties for the television series The Six Million Dollar Man: Wine, Women, and War (1975), The Rescue of Athena One (1975), The Secret of Bigfoot Pass (1976) and International Incidents (1977). ...
DeVos, Elisabeth
(1966- ) US software designer and author, whose first novel, The Seraphim Rising (1997), translates its already extreme Central Florida setting into a Near Future venue infected by a false Messiah, whose exposure as a video producer creates chaos in Orlando. DeVos has written short fiction since this debut; further novels are hoped for. [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 ...