SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 13 June 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 8 June 2026
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Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author, active from around 1950, several of whose books focused on London, including Capital (1975), a complex set of era-switching meditations – including a Neanderthal man's thoughts about the future – on the deep mythos of the city. The novel influenced Michael Moorcock's Mother London (1988) (as the author acknowledged clearly), and similar later works by Iain ...
Hideous Sun Demon, The
Film (1959; vt Blood on His Lips UK; vt Terror from the Sun; vt The Sun Demon). Clarke-King Enterprises/Pacific International Enterprises. Produced by Robert Clarke. Directed by Clarke and Tom Boutross. Written by E S Seeley Jr with additional dialogue by Doane R Hoag from an original idea by Clarke and Phil Hiner. Monster costume by Richard Cassarino (uncredited). Cast includes Robert Clarke, Fred La Porta, Patricia Manning, Nan Peterson, Peter Similuk and Patrick ...
Burks, Arthur J
(1898-1974) US military man and author whose first career was in the American Marine Corps (1917-1927); he re-enlisted in World War Two, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. In the meantime, he began to publish for the Pulp magazines, his first work of fantastic interest being "Thus Spake the Prophetess" (November 1924 Weird Tales) as Estil Critchie; his first sf was "Monsters of Moyen" in Astounding for April 1930. ...
Rolland, Romain
(1866-1944) French academic, journalist, playwright and author, best known for the nonfantastic Jean-Christophe series of novels beginning with L'Aube ["Dawn"] (1908). The exuberant life of the protagonist of Colas Breugnon (1919; trans Katherine Miller as Colas Breugnon Burgundian 1919) casts a fantasticated, Rabelaisian light on life in France three centuries prior. Of sf interest is ...
Sweet, Darrell
(1934-2011) American artist, who came to prefer being credited as Darrell K Sweet. As a young adult, Sweet earned a BFA in painting from Syracuse University in 1956 and also served in the military. After working as a freelance artist, including assignments for Reader's Digest, Sweet began painting sf book covers for Ballantine Books in 1974, later shifting to its subsidiary Del Rey Books. From the start, Sweet ...
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 ...