SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 16 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
Sponsor of the day: Stuart Hopen
Baron, The
Pseudonym of the untraced US author W G Worfel (? -? ), whose Munchausen XX [for full title see Checklist] (1904) escapes being a Sequel by Other Hands through its focus on the interplanetary adventures of one or more separate members of Baron Munchausen's family (see Rudolph Erich Raspe). During the course of at least one ...
Flash, The
US tv series (1990-1991). Pet Fly Productions/Warner Brothers Television for CBS-TV. Character created by Gardner F Fox and Harry Lampert for Flash Comics #1 (January 1940). Flash costume created by Stan Winston. Produced by Gail Morgan Hickman, Steven Long Mitchell. Directors included Bruce Bilson, Jonathan Sanger, Gus Trikonis. Writers included Danny Bilson, Howard Chaykin, Hickman, John Francis Moore. Cast ...
Groc, Léon
(1882-1956) French author of many sf novels, of which only one, L'autobus évanoui (1914; trans Lawrence Shackelford Morris as The Bus That Vanished 1928), has been translated into English; it is a mystery novel involving an energy Ray which causes the eponymous vanishment. [JC]
Collins, Robert
(1972- ) UK author of The Soul Corporation (2004), set in a Near Future dominated by a vast Corporation whose control of things is manifested primarily through advertisements (see Advertising), and which is involved in a Genetic Engineering conspiracy. [JC]
Free, Colin
(1925-1996) Australian author whose The Soft Kill (1973), set in a totalitarian Near Future world in the depths of an Overpopulation crisis (an emphasis which clearly dates Free's concerns, as later in the twentieth century overpopulation became an issue more often ignored than confronted); the privileged few live in elevated Keeps. [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 ...