SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 16 October 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 12 October 2026
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Edwards, Malcolm
(1949-2026) UK editor, critic and publisher, educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in anthropology. Active in UK sf Fandom in the 1970s and early 1980s, he published the first complete text of James Blish's "The Science in Science Fiction" (May 1951-May 1952 Science Fiction Quarterly) in his Fanzine Quicksilver #2 in 1971; edited the ...
van Dongen
Working name of American artist Henry Richard van Dongen (1920-2010), at times also credited as H R van Dongen. He received extensive artistic training at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Woodbury Ross School of Painting before going to work as an artist, initially specializing in advertising and retouching photographs. He entered the sf field with the cover of the September 1950 issue of Super Science Stories, but he quickly became a ...
Luke Cage
US online tv series (2016-current). ABC Studios and Marvel Studios in association with the Walt Disney Company (see Disney on Television) for Netflix. Created by Cheo Hodari Coker from the Marvel Comics character that first appeared in Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1 (June 1972) created by Archie Goodwin, John Romita Senior and George Tuska. Directed by Phil Abraham, Andy Goddard, Marc Jobst, Clark Johnson, ...
Prime Press
Short-lived (the business had failed by 1953) US Small Press specializing in sf; based in Philadelphia, founded in 1947 by Oswald Train (editorial) and James Williams, along with two fans, Alfred C Prime and Armand E Waldo, who later dropped out. Its first published title was the humorous fantasy The Mislaid Charm (February 1941 Unknown; 1947) by Alexander M ...
Wattenberg, Ben J
Working name of US neo-conservative political commentator and author Joseph Ben Zion Wattenberg (1933-2015), whose Against All Enemies: A Novel of the White House (1977) with Ervin S Duggan is a Future War novel told from a moderately conservative standpoint, in which conflict is generated by a fissure between the views of the American President and Vice-President. [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 ...