SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 7 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 6 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Sallis, James
(1944-2026) US musician, poet and author, briefly active in New Worlds during its Michael Moorcock-directed New-Wave phase; he began to publish work of genre interest in this context with "Kazoo" (August 1967 New Worlds) and co-edited the magazine 1968-1969. His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work ...
Kinross, Albert
(1870-1929) UK soldier, editor, journalist and author in various genres, of sf interest for The Fearsome Island: Being a Modern Rendering of the Narrative of one Silas Fordred, Master Mariner of Hythe, Whose Shipwreck and Subsequent Adventures Are Herein Set Forth, Also an Appendix Accounting in a Rational Manner for the Seeming Marvels that Silas Fordred Encountered During his Sojourn on the Fearsome Island of Don Diego Rodriguez (1896), the subtitle being explanatory. The ...
Monster Movies
A term colloquially used for a very specific genre of film, usually borderline sf. A monster movie – sometimes called a Creature Feature – must contain the unexpected appearance, normally in a serene setting, of a creature (or many creatures) hostile to humanity. The nature of the creature is usually revealed gradually, and its attacks normally increase in severity. It may be a mutated animal or human (see Mutants), an Alien, a ...
Leave the World Behind
US film (2023). Esmail Corp, Red Om Productions, Higher Ground Productions. Directed and written by Sam Esmail, based on Leave the World Behind (2020) by Rumaan Alam. Cast includes Mahershala Ali, Vanessa Aspillaga, Kevin Bacon, Charlie Evans, Ethan Hawke, Farrah Mackenzie, Myha'la and Julia Roberts. 141 minutes. Colour. / In a remote rental vacation property on Long Island, New York, the Sandford family are ...
Space Patrol [comic]
US Comic (1952). Two issues. Approved Comics, Inc (see Ziff-Davis). A spin-off from the tv series Space Patrol (1950-1955). Artists include Clarence Doore, Bernie Krigstein and Norman Saunders. Three Space Patrol and one other strip per issue. #2 also has an unsigned two-page article on H G Wells entitled "A Giant of Prophecy" (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 ...