SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 5 February 2023
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.
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Landis, S M
(1829-1902) US clergyman and man of medicine (but not a doctor) whose theories about physical and mental health are promulgated in the 100 chapters of An Entirely New Feature of a Thrilling Novel!: Entitled, The Social War of the Year 1900; Or, the Conspirators and Lovers!: A Lesson for Saints and Sinners (1872), in which a healer, whose powers are sufficient for him to be described as a proto-Superman, combats evil and brings good sense (and a savage ...
Weis, Margaret
(1948- ) US author and games publisher best known for Fantasy series [not listed below], in particular the extensive Dragonlance sequence of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Role Playing Game-based Ties beginning with Dragons of Autumn Twilight (1984) with Tracy Hickman (1955- ). Of sf interest are two short linked series of ...
Unknown Island
US film (1948) Albert Jay Cohen Productions/Film Classics Inc. Produced by Albert J Cohen. Directed by Jack Bernard. Written by Robert T Shannon, Jack Harvey from an original story by Shannon. Cast includes Richard Denning, Virginia Grey, Barton MacLane and Phillip Reed (as Philip Reed). 76 minutes, cut to 75 minutes. Colour. / Adventurer Ted Osborne (Reed) convinces his fiance Carole Lane (Grey) to finance a search for a legendary Island in the South ...
Foster, C E
(1919-2009) American engineer and author in whose sf novel, Journey to the Future (1966), human beings must define themselves in terms of the ambivalently Utopian world of the future. [JC]
McNaughton, Janet
(1953- ) Canadian author for Young Adult readers whose The Secret Under My Skin (2000) is set in a constricted distant-Near Future world, a twenty-fourth-century Dystopian venue beset by the consequences of Climate Change; the young protagonist finds that the discovery of her true identity may lead to a solution to some of the ...
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 ...