SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 14 July 2025
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.
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Beast with a Million Eyes, The
Film (1955; vt The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes!). San Mateo Productions, American Releasing Corporation (see American International Pictures). Executive producers: James H Nicholson and Samuel Z Arkoff. Produced by David Kramarsky. Written by Tom Filer. Directed by Kramarsky and Roger Corman (uncredited). Cast includes Paul Birch, Dona Cole, Chester Conklin, Dick Sargent (credited as Richard ...
Vortex
UK letter-size magazine; five monthly issues, January to May 1977, published by Shalmead (January-February), Container Publications (March) and Cerberus Publishing (April-May); edited by Keith Seddon. Vortex was a glossy magazine with some interior illustrations in full colour. The first three covers, by Rodney Matthews, suggested an orientation towards fantasy which was not evident in the actual magazine. Issues #1-#4 serialized Michael ...
Flash, The
US tv series (1990-1991). Pet Fly Productions/Warner Brothers Television for CBS-TV. Character created by Gardner F Fox and Harry Lampert for Flash Comics #1 (January 1940). Flash costume created by Stan Winston. Produced by Gail Morgan Hickman, Steven Long Mitchell. Directors included Bruce Bilson, Jonathan Sanger, Gus Trikonis. Writers included Danny Bilson, Howard Chaykin, Hickman, John Francis Moore. Cast ...
Dark Angel
US tv series (2000-2002). 20th Century Fox Television and Cameron/Eglee Productions for Fox. Created by James Cameron and Charles H Eglee. Produced by Cameron, Eglee, and René Echevarria. Writers include Cameron, Eglee, Echvarria, Jose Molina, Moira Kirland, David Zabel, and Michael Angeli. Directors include Cameron, David Nutter, Jeff Woolnough, and Thomas J Wright. Cast includes Jessica Alba as Max Guevara, ...
Swartwout, R Egerton
(1905-1951) US-born cartoonist and author, in the UK from early manhood. The Boat Race Murder (1933) is a nonfantastic detective novel. Of sf interest is It Might Have Happened: A Sketch of the Later Career of Rupert Lister Audenard [for full title see Checklist] (1934), an Alternate History of Britain whose Jonbar Point is the survival of Randolph Churchill (1849-1895) (here Rupert Audenard) ...
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 ...