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Saturday 5 September 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 31 August 2026
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Murray, Will
Working name of US author William Patrick Murray (1953-2026), who showed an interest throughout his career in Superheroes of the Pulp tradition (on which he was a known authority) such as Doc Savage, about which figure he wrote the nonfiction Secrets of Doc Savage (1981 chap). In this context he had been literary agent for Lester Dent's estate since 1979. ...
Starship Invasions
Film (1977; vt Project Genocide UK). Warner Brothers. Produced and directed by Ed Hunt. Written by Hunt. Cast includes Christopher Lee, Helen Shaver and Robert Vaughan. 89 minutes. Colour. / A small fleet of UFOs led by Captain Rameses (Lee) arrives at Earth searching for a new home for their race; their own planet Alpha's star is about to go supernova. After abducting some Earth people, Rameses's force, the Legion of the Winged Serpent, finds that his ...
Halo: Combat Evolved
Videogame (2001). Bungie Studios (BS). Designed by John Howard. Platforms: XBox (2001); Mac, Win (2003); rev vt Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary XB360 (2011). / Halo: Combat Evolved is a First Person Shooter, with a linear plot (see Interactive Narrative) which owes much to such sf action films as Aliens ...
Walker, Alice
(1944- ) US author best known for novels like The Color Purple (1982), exploring from a Feminist perspective the fate of being Black in America. One of the protagonists of The Temple of My Familiar (1989), an extremely long Fabulation, is immortal (see Immortality) or has suffered numerous incarnations (see ...
Cayea, John
(? - ) US illustrator, seemingly active only from around 1970 to around 1981, his first cover being for Eando Binder's The Night of the Saucers (1971) from Belmont Books. Almost all of his following work was for Doubleday and Company, beginning with Jacqueline Lichtenberg's House of Zeor (1974). A Cayea cover soon became easy to recognize, often ...
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 ...