SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 14 May 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 11 May 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Suzuki Kōji
(1957-2026) Japanese author and essayist, largely known in English through the Cinema adaptations of several of his books, the international success of which obscured his wide-ranging domestic output. His horror and Equipoisal fiction proceeded in tandem with a wide array (not listed here) of books on young fatherhood and occasional works on motorcycle travel. He was also the translator of Simon Brett's ...
Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future
UK sf Comic-strip character, distinguished in appearance by his long chin and by the zigzag on the outer end of each eyebrow. Dan Dare was created by Frank Hampson for the weekly boys' comic Eagle, in which – with the sobriquet "Pilot of the Future" – he appeared with his Lancashire batman Digby from 1950 until the comic's demise in 1969. Hampson supervised a team of artists, model-makers and photographers to ...
Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy
Founded in 1970 by Toronto Public Library in Canada, to house a major donation by sf author and anthologist Judith Merril and substantially added to since, mostly during the long successful tenure from 1986 to 2017 of Lorna Toolis as its head; known as the Spaced Out Library until 1 January 1991, and housed from September 1995 in a Special Collections building at 239 College Street in central Toronto, which also holds the ...
Vanilla Sky
Film (2001). Paramount pictures presents a Cruise-Wagner/Vinyl Films production in association with Sogecine/Summit Entertainment/Artisan Entertainment. Written and directed by Cameron Crowe. Based on Abre Los Ojos (1997) by Alejandro Amenábar & Mateo Gil. Theme song by Paul McCartney. Cast includes Tom Cruise, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Jason Lee, Kurt Russell, Timothy Spall and Noah Taylor. ...
Rose, Heather
(1964- ) Australian author whose Tuesday McGillycuddy sequence with Danielle Wood under the joint pseudonym Angelica Banks, and beginning with Finding Serendipity (2013), is fantasy for younger readers. Rose is of sf interest for the Near Future Bruny (2019), set just after an American president has engineered a second term and Brexit is in force; in Tasmania, a Chinese-financed and -engineered project to ...
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 ...