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Monday 16 March 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.
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Willans, Geoffrey
Working name of Herbert Geoffrey Willans (1911-1958), UK schoolmaster, author and journalist who served in the Royal Navy during World War Two. He is best remembered for his comic squibs and sketches narrated as by the archetypal 1950s schoolboy Nigel Molesworth, memorably illustrated by Ronald Searle (1920-2011) in the vein of the artist's St Trinian's girls'-school cartoons though with less savagery and more whimsy. Molesworth made his debut in ...
Planet Comics
US Comic (1940-1953). Fiction House Magazines. 73 issues. Artists include Murphy Anderson, George Appel, Enrico Bagnoli, Bill Benulis, Alex Blum, Joe Doolin, Lee Elias, Fran Hopper, Henry Kiefer, Chester Martin, Ruben Moreira, Maurice Whitman and Dan Zolnerowich. Script authors include Olaf Bjorn, Ross Gallun, Thorncliffe Herrick and Douglas McKee. Initially 7 or 8 comic strips per issue, gradually reducing to 4 or 5, plus a two page text story, short strips and ...
Hale, David L
(? - ) US author – not to be confused with David L Hale (1949- ), also an author – of two sf Satires, 2084: The Year of the Liberal (2001), which assumes the Post-Holocaust persecution of conservatives, and a primitive America now called Fairland and ruled by an Hispanic liberal lesbian female; and The Liberal Masters (2002), which ...
Nowa Fantastyka Award
Polish juried Award for the best authors and works of Fantastika published in Polish in the preceding calendar year, established in 2014 by the editors of Nowa Fantastyka. Over time, the award expanded from two to six categories, covering both Polish and translated works, as well as comics and authors. / From 2014 to 2019 the Award had two categories; as of 2025 that ...
Woodley, Richard
(1937- ) Author, presumably US, active from the 1970s through the 1990s, who has published some twenty novels in various genres – almost all Cinema or Television Ties. Sf examples listed below are chiefly based on the television series The Man from Atlantis (1977-1978). Film ties include novelizations of ...
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 ...