SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 14 February 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 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Carver, Jeffrey A
(1949-2026) US author who began publishing sf with "... Of No Return" in Fiction Magazine for 1974. His first novel, Seas of Ernathe (1976), which serves as an introduction to the loose Star Rigger sequence of Space Operas, showed early signs of a love of plot and thematic complexity which would take him some time, and several novels, to control. The continuation, Star Rigger's Way (1978), for instance, combines quest ...
Scoops
UK small weekly tabloid magazine, 20 issues 10 February to 23 June 1934, published by C A Pearson Ltd, London, in the editorial department of Haydn Dimmock (1895-1955), editor of The Scout, though the managing editor was Bernard Buley (1899-1973). Scoops was intended as a Boys' Paper that would "transport its readers from the everyday happenings into the future"; whatever appeal it might have had for adults was not helped by the decision to use, ...
Ward, Don
(1911-1984) US editor, chiefly as a freelance but long associated with Dell Books, and author of H. Rider Haggard's She: The Story Retold (1949), which as conveyed by the title is a retelling of She: A History of Adventure (2 October 1886-8 January 1887 The Graphic; cut 1886; full text 1887) by H Rider Haggard. He collaborated with Theodore Sturgeon on some Western tales which ...
Robertson, Dale
(? - ) US author known only for The Son of the Phantom (1944), a Tie to the Comic The Phantom scripted by Lee Falk. The novel is based on the 1944-1945 newspaper storyline "The Childhood of the Phantom", telling of the young Phantom's jungle childhood, US education, and return to Africa to inherit the crime-fighting role of ...
Schweigende Stern, Der
["The Silent Star"] Film (1960; vt Raumschiff Venus Antwortet Nicht; The Silent Star; First Spaceship on Venus, 1962 US; Planet of the Dead; The Astronauts; The Silent Star, 2004; Spaceship Venus Does Not Reply). Deutsche Film. Directed by Kurt Maetzig. Written by Jan Fethke, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Kurt Maetzig, Günter Reisch, Günther Rucker, Alexander Stenbock-Fermor, and J Barkhauer (uncredited), based on the novel ...
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 ...