SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 25 September 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.
Site updated on 18 September 2023
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Thébault, Eugène
(1864-1942) French journalist and author who also wrote as by Paul Zahori. He is of sf interest for Radio-Terreur (23 June 1927-?? 1928 L'Aventure as "Radio-Terreur, grand roman de Mystère"; 1929; trans Fletcher Pratt as "Radio-Terror" June-October 1933 Wonder Stories; 2011), in which a Mad Scientist declares his intention to use his ...
Venus
Because Earth's inner neighbour presented a bright and featureless face to early astronomers, it became something of a mystery planet. Nineteenth-century astronomers and early-twentieth-century sf writers generally imagined that, as the featureless face was a permanent cloud layer, the surface beneath must be warm and wet; the Venus of the imagination became a planet of vast oceans (perhaps with no land at all) or sweltering jungles. In the 1960s, however, probes revealed that Venus has no ...
Flame Barrier, The
Film (1958; vt It Fell from the Flame Barrier). Gramercy Pictures/United Artists. Produced by Arthur Gardner and Jules V Levy. Directed by Paul Landres. Written by Pat Fielder and George Worthing Yates from a story by Yates. Cast includes Robert Brown, Kathleen Crowley and Arthur Franz. 70 minutes. Black and white. / Attractive Carol Dahlmann (Crowley) hires jungle guide Dave Hollister (Franz) to lead an expedition in search of her missing husband, a wealthy industrialist and ...
Night Slaves
US made-for-tv film (1970). Bing Crosby Productions for ABC-TV. Produced by Everett Chambers. Directed by Ted Post. Written by Chambers, Robert Specht, based on Night Slaves (1961) by Jerry Sohl. Cast includes James Franciscus, Lee Grant, Leslie Nielsen, Andrew Prine and Tisha Sterling. 72 minutes. Colour. / Clay Howard (Franciscus) and Marjorie Howard (Grant) are a couple having some marriage problems as the film begins; they soon find ...
Schulman, Helen
(1961- ) US screenwriter and author, most of whose work has consisted of nonfantastic scrutinies of the complex patterns of contemporary life among the relatively affluent. She is of sf interest for her sixth novel, Come With Me (2018), in which members of a Silicon Valley family (see California) attempt to extract themselves from the perplexities of their affluent but emotionally desiccant lives by making use of a ...
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 ...