SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 14 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 7 July 2025
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SF
Pronounced "esseff", the preferred abbreviation of Science Fiction within the community of sf writers and readers, as opposed to the journalistic Sci Fi, a distinction that many older sf readers continue to adhere to, but which has become increasingly blurred, as in "The Science Fiction Issue" of The New Yorker (4-11 June 2012), whose masthead also describes its contents as "Sci-Fi". In this volume – as often elsewhere ...
Frankenstein Monster
The term is in general use, not only in sf Terminology but in common parlance, to mean a Monster that ultimately turns and rends its irresponsible creator. Readers of sf are aware that in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley original novel, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1811; rev 1831), Frankenstein was the name of the creator and not of the monster; in popular ...
Knight Rider
US tv series (1982-1986). Glen A Larson Productions/Universal Television for NBC-TV. Created by Glen A Larson. Produced by Gino Grimaldi, Tom Greene, Steven E de Souza, Gerald Sandford, Hannah Louise Shearer and Harker Wade. Directors included Bob Ball, George Fenady, Sidney Hayers, Winrich Kolbe, and Jeffrey Hayden. Writers included Burton Armus, de Souza, Janis Herdler, Bruce Lansbury, Larson and Richard Christian ...
Fireball XL5
UK tv series (1962-1963). AP Films for ATV/ITC. Created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Produced by Gerry Anderson. Directors included Alan Pattillo, John Kelly, Bill Harris. Writers included the Andersons, Alan Fennell, Anthony Marriott, Dennis Spooner. Cast includes Sylvia Anderson, John Bluthal, David Graham and Paul Maxwell. One full season and one part-season. 39 25-minute episodes. Black and white. / This was the second of the Andersons' ...
Face of Fu Manchu, The
Film (1965). Anglo-Amalgamated. Directed by Don Sharp. Written by Harry Alan Towers, based on the characters created by Sax Rohmer. Cast includes Tsai Chin, Nigel Green, James Robertson Justice, Christopher Lee and Howard Marion-Crawford. 96 minutes. Colour. / The first of a series of films produced by Harry Alan Towers in which Christopher Lee (1922-2015) portrayed the oriental master-fiend, Tsai Chin played Fu's insidious daughter (renamed Lin Tang ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...