SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 9 August 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 3 August 2026
Sponsor of the day: John Howard
Larison, John
(1979- ) US author whose first work, the nonfiction The Complet Steelheader (2008) on fly-fishing, and his first two novels, which are also about fishing, led to Whisky When We're Dry (2018), a nonfantastic Western narrated by a girl forced to masquerade as a boy. Larison is of sf interest for The Ancients (2024), set on an Earth sufficiently distant from the Near-Future devastations caused by ...
Nichols, Robert [2]
(1919-2010) US poet and author of the Daily Lives in Nghsi-Altai sequence describing in fictionalized terms a pacific, agricultural, myth-driven Utopia, beginning with Red Shift: An Introduction to Nghsi-Altai (1977) with Peter Schumann and ending with Exile: Book IV of Daily Lives in Nghsi-Altai (1978). From the Steam Room: A Satire of Global Perspective on the Financial Ruin of New York (1993) is a ...
Outlanders
Japanese Original Video Animation (OVA) (1986). Tatsunoko Production. Based on the Manga by Johji Manabe. Directed by Katsuhisa Yamada. Written by Kenji Terada and Sukehiro Tomita. Voice cast includes Fumi Hirano, Mitsuo Iwata, Miko Terashima, Takashi Toyama, Kenji Utsumi and Mari Yokoo. 48 minutes. Colour. / The Santovasku Galactic Empire, ruled by Emperor Quevas (Toyama), plans to conquer Earth ...
Movie Monsters
1. US letter-size, perfect-bound Cinema magazine printed on newsprint-quality paper. Publisher: Atlas/Seaboard Comics. Editor: Jeff Rovin. Four issues, December 1974 to August 1975. / This publication was the short-lived Comics publisher's attempt to compete with Famous Monsters of Filmland, and was ...
James, Edward
(1947- ) UK academic and editor – early involved in UK Fandom – who began teaching at University College, Dublin, in 1970, and moved to York University in 1978, where he became Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies in 1992; he was appointed Professor of History at the University of Reading in September 1995, and was there responsible with Patrick Parrinder for founding Reading's MA in ...
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 ...