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.
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Gatiss, Mark
(1966- ) UK actor and author, best known in his sometime capacity as a member of The League of Gentlemen, a comedy team on BBC radio and television since 1995, acting in and co-authoring a spin-off film, The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse (2005). Although not strictly science-fictional, The League of Gentlemen's work – mainly focusing on the fictional Northern English town of Royston Vasey – makes frequent reference to film and ...
Evil Brain from Outer Space
Japanese/US film (1966). Shintoho. Directed by Chogi Akasaka and Teruo Ishii. Written by Ichiro Miyagawa and Teruo Ishii. Cast includes Hiroshi Asami, Akira Nakamura, Tomohiko Ôtani and Ken Utsui. 78 minutes. Black and white. / This was compiled from episodes 7, 8 and 9 of the Japanese Super Giant film series (see Tokusatsu), edited and dubbed by Walter Manley Enterprises into Evil Brain From Outer Space for ...
Swann, S Andrew
Pseudonym of US author Steven A Swiniarski (1966- ), much of whose sf has been constructed as a loose Future History beginning with the Terran Confederacy: Moreau sequence – comprising Forests of the Night (1993), Emperors of the Twilight (1994) and Specters of the Dawn (1994), all three assembled as Moreau Omnibus (omni 2003), plus ...
Connolly, John
(1968- ) Irish journalist and author, active from the mid-1990s, partner of Jennifer Ridyard, with whom he has collaborated. He is best known for his Charlie Parker noir crime thrillers beginning with Every Dead Thing (1999), featuring an ex-police detective, normally in private practice after the devastating family tragedy that initiates the series; his unusual methods are seen as suspicious and possibly ...
Monette, Paul
(1945-1995) US poet and author, winner of the National Book Award for his memoir Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story (1992), though an earlier nonfiction text, Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir (1988) has remained more prominent. He is best remembered as an effective and eloquent delineator of gay life in America, and as an activist for gay rights, mostly in the context of AIDS. He is of modest sf interest for some Ties, beginning with ...
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 ...