SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 16 July 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 14 July 2026
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Godwin, Francis
(1562-1633) UK bishop and author, most noted for his striking description of a lunar Utopia in the posthumously and anonymously published The Man in the Moone: Or A Discourse of a Voyage Thither by Domingo Gonsales, the Speedy Messenger (1638). There is considerable debate over the date of composition, some suggesting it was written as early as 1588 after Godwin heard Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) lecture at Oxford, though most recent theories suggest it ...
Red Band Comics
Mexican/US Comic (1944-1945). #1-#3 Publicaciones Recreativas (Mexico), #4 Lindsay L. Baird Inc. (USA). Four issues (but see below). Artists include Bernard Baily and August Froehlich. Scriptwriters include Bruce Elliott. 52 pages per issue, comprising five long strips and a short text story, plus some brief filler material. Though there were four issues, numbered #1-#4 (and with different dates), #2 has the same content and cover art as ...
Quatermass
UK tv serial (1979; vt The Quatermass Conclusion). Euston Films/ITV. Produced by Ted Childs. Directed by Piers Haggard. Written Nigel Kneale. Cast includes Simon MacCorkindale, John Mills and Rebecca Saire. Four 60-minute episodes. Colour. Version for film release (but receiving general release only on videotape) titled The Quatermass Conclusion, 102 minutes. / Following in the wake of The ...
Deadly Mantis, The
Film (1957). Universal-International Pictures. Produced by William Alland. Directed by Nathan Juran. Written by Martin Berkeley and Alland (uncredited). Cast includes William Hopper, Craig Stevens and Alix Talton. 79 minutes. Black and white. / A volcano erupts in the Southern Pacific, somehow causing a break-up of ice near the North Pole which frees a 200-foot-long prehistoric praying mantis (see Great and Small) from a state of ...
Gallagher, Matt
(1983- ) US former soldier and author whose military experiences are reflected in a blog, Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal (2007-2008), which was shut down by his superiors; in his first book, Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War (2010), a memoir; and in his first novel, Youngblood (2016), a complex nonfantastic rendering of America's intimate involvement in Iraq. Gallagher is of sf interest for his second novel, ...
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 ...