SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
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. ...
Collier's Weekly
US news and general interest magazine, noted early in its existence for its investigative journalism; counted as one of the Slicks although for most of its run it was in tabloid format. It was founded by the Irish immigrant Peter Fenelon Collier (1849-1909) as Collier's Once A Week from 28 April 1888, edited by fellow Irishman Nugent Robinson. It became Collier's Weekly in 1895 and simply Collier's from 1905. It remained weekly to 25 July 1953, ...
Johnson, Charles
Almost certainly the joint pseudonym of Gena Metcalf (? - ) and Tom Metcalf (? - ), most of whose work has been nonfiction for Young Adult readers. Of sf interest is Pieces of Eight (1989), whose young protagonists travel by Timeslip to the world of the pirate Blackbeard, where they have adventures; this title was announced as beginning the ...
Saccomanno, Guillermo
(1948- ) Argentinian Comics scriptwriter, poet and author, active from the early 1970s. He is of broad genre interest for his fifth novel 77 (2008; trans Andrea G Labinger 2019), where Kafkaesque topoi (see also Fantastika) markedly enrich a memoir-like narrative focused on the beginning of the Videla dictatorship in Argentina in ...
Science Fiction Quarterly
US Pulp magazine in two series: Summer 1940 to Spring 1943 (10 issues) and May 1951 to February 1958 (28 issues), published by Columbia Publications. The first two issues of the first series were edited by Charles Hornig, and all others by Robert A W Lowndes. / In its first incarnation Science Fiction Quarterly – a companion to Science Fiction (see ...
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 ...