SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 11 April 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.
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Benchley, Peter
(1940-2006) US author best known for his first novel Jaws (1974), a best-selling tale of a great man-eating shark that terrorizes a seaside resort community; never strictly venturing into the fantastic, it has many effectively timed beats of Horror which were remorselessly amplified in the resulting Monster Movie Jaws (1975), directed by Steven Spielberg and ...
Thompson, Colin
(1942- ) UK illustrator and author, in Australia from 1995; of his very numerous books, many of them for younger children, he is of sf interest for the Young Adult Future Eden sequence beginning with Future Eden: A Brief History of Next Time (1999), which is set in a severely depopulated Ruined Earth world about 200 years hence. The solitary young protagonist, who lives a hardscrabble ...
Alien Nine
Japanese Original Video Animation (OVA) (2001-2002). Original title Eirian Nain. Based on the Manga by Hitoshi Tomizawa. J.C.Staff. Directed by Jiro Fujimoto and Yasuhiro Irie. Written by Sadayuki Murai. Voice cast includes Aya Hisakawa, Juri Ihata, Rei Sakuma, Kaori Shimizu and Noriko Shitaya. Four 30-minute episodes. Colour. / Twelve-year-old Yuri Otani's (Ihata) class elects her to be one of that year's ...
Lyle, Eugene P, Jr
(1873-1962) US journalist and author, whose The Great War of 1938 (September 1918 Everybody's Magazine; 1918 chap) predicts with unusual accuracy the onset of World War Two, though its propagandist thesis for readers in September 1918 – that Germany would take advantage of any weak peace terms laid down after its coming defeat in World War One – was very wide of the mark. An earlier nonfiction ...
Mills, Jeff
(1963- ) US DJ, electronic musician and artist, one of the pioneers and most influential figures in Detroit techno, both in his solo work and as a member of Underground Resistance, from the 1980s onwards. Many entries in his voluminous discography are inspired by sf, their sleek textures, which were very alien sounding when they first appeared, often (successfully) attempting to evoke either spaceflight or the future. Self-explanatory titles include Time Machine ...
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 ...