SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 19 February 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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 18 February 2025
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Moore, Chris
(1947-2025) Prolific UK artist, known to the public primarily for his hard-edged treatment of Hard SF subjects, although in fact he produced covers in different styles for all sorts of other genres as well, including illustrations of record sleeves for artists as diverse as Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo and Pentangle. What impressed most about Moore's sf art was not just the photographic realism but the sense of scale, achieved largely through a ...
Grandville, J J
Pseudonym of French caricaturist and illustrator Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard (1803-1847), active from the mid-1820s to 1835, primarily as a caricaturist (until the imposition of prior censorship on political cartoons in 1835). He is of overall interest as a creator of images of Fantastika beginning with Les Métamorphoses du jour ["Metamorphoses of the Day"] (graph 1829) [for revised edition see Checklist], featuring caricatures of known ...
Niall, Ian
Pseudonym of Scottish author John McNeillie (1916-2002), most famous for the nonfiction The Poacher's Handbook (1950). His sf novel, The Boy Who Saw Tomorrow (1952), offers a quiet portrait of the effect on a small village of a young lad's Predictions of the Near Future. [JC]
Briggs, Ian
(? - ) UK scriptwriter and actor who wrote two Television serials for the Doctor Who universe, each featuring the Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy: "Dragonfire" (23 November 1987 to 7 December 1987), which he novelized as Doctor Who: Dragonfire (1989); and "The Curse of Fenric" (25 October 1989 to 15 November 1989), which he novelized as Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric ...
Heliomanes
Pseudonym of unidentified UK author (? -? ) of A Journey to the Sun (1866 chap), featuring Space Flight to a molten metal shell around the sun, the Utopian society there being described in terms of Satire. [JC]
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 ...