SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 9 March 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 9 March 2026
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Waugh, Evelyn
(1903-1966) UK author, known mostly for a series of black inter-War Satires, such as Decline and Fall (1928) and A Handful of Dust (1934), and for Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder (1945). The Near Future Vile Bodies (1930) ends in an apocalyptic Europe torn by a final War – but this is no more than a ...
Kahler, Jack
(? - ) US author of a soft-porn sf novel (see Sex), Latex Lady (1964; vt Rubber Dolly 1966), about an Android sex toy. [JC]
Giant Gila Monster, The
Film (1959). Hollywood Pictures Corporation/McLendon-Radio Pictures Distributing Company. Produced by Ken Curtis. Directed by Ray Kellogg. Written by Jay Simms from an original story by Kellogg. Cast includes George "Shug" Fisher, Fred Graham, Cecil Hunt, Lisa Simone, Janice Stone, Don Sullivan and Bob Thompson. Gay McLendon. 74 minutes. Black and white. / As the film begins, two teenage lovers are attacked and killed by the titular Monster in their ...
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir (1965- ) Icelandic singer and composer, widely celebrated for her idiosyncratic vocal style and a left-field eccentricity of musical focus that often shades into sf; she has worked on occasion with the singer-songwriter and author Sjón between 1995 and 2011. "Human Behaviour", her first hit (from Debut, 1993) takes the position of a ...
Rudaux, Lucien
(1874-1947) French astronomer and popular-science author and illustrator whose Sur les autres mondes ["On Other Worlds"] (1937) contains many examples of space art, imagining – in terms of current scientific knowledge – the landscapes of the Moon and other planets of our solar system. His depiction of the Moon's surface as consisting of rolling landscapes with rounded mountains and hills (Rudaux even explained his ...
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 ...