SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 11 July 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 7 July 2026
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Véry, Pierre
(1900-1960) French screenwriter, journalist and author active from the mid-1920s, under several names including Toussaint Judge; best known for his many crime novels. His sf novel, Le pays sans étoiles ["Land Without Stars"] (1945; trans Stuart Gilbert as In What Strange Land 1949), is a thriller built around the possibility that a woman intruder – mysteriously connected with a Perception-distorting wasteland at the heart ...
Life on Mars
US tv series (2008-2009). Kudos Film and Television for ABC. Created by Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, and Scott Rosenberg, based on the British series of the same name, created by Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharaoh. Writers include Appelbaum, Nemec and Rosenberg. Directors include Michael Katleman, Darnell Martin and Alex Zakrzewki. Cast includes Jason O'Mara as Sam Tyler, Harvey Keitel as Gene Hunt, Gretchen Mol as Annie Norris, Michael Imperioli as Ray Carling and Jonathan Murphy ...
Gamma
US Digest-size magazine. Five issues 1963-1965, published by Star Press, North Hollywood; edited by William F Nolan for three issues, then by Jack Matcha and Charles E Fritch. The fiction in this magazine – a blend of sf and fantasy – was of good quality, many stories being by Californian writers with film connections, like Charles Beaumont and ...
Siegele, H H
(1883-1983) US author, mostly of nonfiction works on carpentry and building in general; Pushing Buttons (1946 chap) is a short Lost Race tale. [JC]
Crimson Pirate, The
Film (1952). Hecht-Lancaster Productions/Warner Brothers. Produced by Harold Hecht. Directed by Robert Siodmak. Written by Roland Kibbee. Cast includes Eva Bartok, Leslie Bradley, Nick Cravat, James Hayter, Burt Lancaster, Frederick Leister and Torin Thatcher. 105 minutes. Colour. / In the late eighteenth century, the pirate Captain Vallo (Lancaster), also known as The Crimson Pirate, captures a Royal Navy vessel bound for the fictional Caribbean Island of ...
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 ...