SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 23 April 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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Broderick, Damien
(1944-2025) Australian author, editor and critic; he had a PhD in the semiotics of fiction, science and sf with special reference to the work of Samuel R Delany. He edited four anthologies of Australian sf: The Zeitgeist Machine (anth 1977), Strange Attractors (anth 1985), Matilda at the Speed of Light (anth 1988) and Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (anth ...
Tenet
Film (2020). Warner Brothers Pictures in association with Syncopy. Written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Cast includes Kenneth Branagh, Elizabeth Debicki, Robert Pattinson and John David Washington. 150 minutes. Colour. / Tenet is a Time Travel action movie that abounds in visual symmetries and takes its title from the centrepiece of the Sator Square, an ancient Latin word-game which arranges five ...
ALF
US tv series (1986-1990). Warner Bros TV for NBC. Created by Paul Fusco and Ed Weinberger. Produced by Tom Patchett. Writers include Fusco, Patchett. Directors include Fusco, Patchett, Peter Bonerz. 25 minutes per episode. Colour. / ALF, an "alien life form" – in the line of extraterrestrial descent from My Favorite Martian and Mork in Mork & Mindy, though also influenced heavily by ...
Turkey
A full entry for sf in Turkey must await a contributor fluent in its language and able to report from the inside on the development of the genre there, and on untranslated works. The best known Proto SF author from this region is Lucian of Samosata in what is now modern Turkey. Little Turkish sf has been translated; relevant authors given full entries in this encyclopedia are the Turkish-Armenia-born US Gregory ...
Tobor the Great
Film (1954). Dudley Pictures Corporation. Produced by Richard Goldstone. Directed by Lee Sholem. Written by Philip MacDonald from a story by Carl Dudley. Tobor designed by Robert Kinoshita. Cast includes Karin Booth (Janice Roberts), Billy Chapin, Charles Drake, Steven Geray, Taylor Holmes and J Lewis Smith (uncredited). 77 minutes. Black and white. / The US government wants to attempt manned Space Flight, but Dr ...
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 ...