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Wednesday 25 May 2022
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.
Site updated on 23 May 2022
Sponsor of the day: David Redd
Cinemagic
Letter-size saddle-stapled special effects Cinema magazine. Originally a Fanzine issued by Don Dohler (1946-2006) for 11 photocopied issues from 1972 to 1979. Relaunched in 1979 by O'Quinn Publications. Edited by Dohler and others. 36 issues from 1979 to 1987; the publication schedule was roughly quarterly. / This was the first US magazine to offer instructions on how to create special effects for amateur films. It began as a Fanzine published by Dohler alone, with severely limited ...
Shriek
Letter-size saddle-stapled Cinema magazine. Publisher: Acme News Company Incorporated. Editor credited as "Frank N Stein". Four issues, May 1965 to Winter 1967. Publication was nominally quarterly, but in fact erratic. / This was a venture by magazine distributor Acme News into the Movie Monster magazine field; though short-lived it was of good quality, with well-written articles and interviews. The focus was almost entirely on such then-current films as Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. ...
Applin, Arthur
(1873-1949) UK aviator in World War One, playwright and author whose Near Future sf tale, The Priest of Piccadilly (1910) offers the worry that Britain might be taken over through a revolution fomented by a demagogue. [JC]
Magog, H-J
Pseudonym – also written without the hyphen – of French author Henri-Georges Jeanne (1877-1947), primarily of interest for his collaboration with Paul Féval fils [whom see for details] on the Mysteries of Tomorrow sequence beginning with Les Fiancés de l'an 2000 (1922; trans Brian Stableford as The Mysteries of Tomorrow: Volume 1: Fiances of the Year 2000 2020). His other work remains untranslated. [JC]
Lees, Robert James
(1849-1931) UK psychic, most famous for being the subject of a Jack the Ripper hoax, when a newspaper declared that he had pointed out a physician as the murderer. Of some sf interest is The Car of Phoebus (1903), which incorporates a Lost Race into a story involving Reincarnation; his remaining works lie outside the range of sf. [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 ...