SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 19 July 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 14 July 2026
Sponsor of the day: John Howard
Secret Agent "X"
US Pulp Magazine. Published by Periodical House Inc, an imprint of Ace Magazines. Editors were Rose Wyn for the first few years, then Harry Widmer for the remainder of the run. Publication varied from monthly to an erratic bimonthly schedule. 41 issues from February 1934 to March 1941, initially with "X" in quotation marks and cover subtitle "The Man of a Thousand Faces"; from #20 (November 1935) as Secret Agent X without quotes and ...
Leslie, Norman
(? - ) UK author of the Kiwi Club series comprising The Kiwi Club (1938) and Raid over England (1938), set in the very Near Future and featuring a group of airmen from the previous war banded together to save England from its gathering foes, who (in the second volume) plan to bomb England with disease-carrying packets (see Weapons). [JC]
Resident Evil [film]
Film (2002; vt Biohazard: Genesis). Constantin Film/Davis Films present a Constantin Film/New Legacy Film production in association with Davis Films and Impact Pictures. Directed by Paul W S Anderson. Written by Anderson, based on the Videogame Biohazard (Japan), also known as Resident Evil (USA). Cast includes Milla Jovovich, Eric Mabius, James Purefoy and Michelle ...
Pollock, Walter Herries
(1850-1926) UK editor, man-of-letters and author, some of whose work is of sf interest, though "Sir Jocelyn's Cap", his collaboration with Walter Besant in the latter's Uncle Jack, etc. (coll 1885), is fantasy. Other fantasy tales are assembled in A Nine Men's Morrice: Stories Collected and Re-Collected (coll 1889) and King Zub, and Other Stories (coll 1893). Of more sf interest is He (1887) with Andrew ...
Planetary Romance
Any sf tale whose primary venue (excluding contemporary or Near-Future versions of Earth) is a planet, and whose plot turns to a significant degree upon the nature of that venue, can be described as a planetary romance. For the term to apply properly, however, it is not enough that a tale simply be set on a world: James Blish's A Case of Conscience (September 1953 If; exp 1958), for instance, ...
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 ...