SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 12 February 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 9 February 2026
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Carver, Jeffrey A
(1949-2026) US author who began publishing sf with "... Of No Return" in Fiction Magazine for 1974. His first novel, Seas of Ernathe (1976), which serves as an introduction to the loose Star Rigger sequence of Space Operas, showed early signs of a love of plot and thematic complexity which would take him some time, and several novels, to control. The continuation, Star Rigger's Way (1978), for instance, combines quest ...
Anderson, Kevin J
(1962- ) US technical author and author, married to Rebecca Moesta; he began publishing sf with "Luck of the Draw" in Space and Time (Winter 1982/1983 #63), and gradually became a prolific contributor of short fiction and articles to various sf journals, over 100 items having been published by 1992. His first novel, Resurrection, Inc. (1988; vt ...
Gill, Joe
Working name of Joseph P Gill (1919-2006), highly productive US Comics scriptwriter and colourist who is certainly among the most prolific comics writers of all time and could indeed be in the number-one position; so much of his work appeared without credit that the true figures may never be known. He was first active in the 1940s with Timely Comics, precursor of Marvel Comics, and in the 1950s became strongly associated with ...
Shazam!
US juvenile tv series (1974-1976). Filmation Associates for CBS television. Directors included Hollingsworth Morse, Chuck Menville, Henry J Lange Jr and Robert Chenault. Writers included character creator C C Beck, Donald F Glut, Marianne Means and Olga Simms. Cast includes Jackson Bostwick, John Davey, Michael Gray and Les Tremayne. 28 30-minute episodes. Colour. / In this live-action series Billy Batson (Gray) is a teenager with the ability to ...
Leon, Mark
(? - ) US author of the Mind-Surfer sequence of Near Future tales – comprising Mind-Surfer (1995), The Gaia War (1995) and The Unified Field (1996) – in the second of which the manufacture of a fully-powered goddess called Gaia brings about a threat of change leading to Disaster in the year 2000, a threat that ...
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 ...