SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 19 February 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 18 February 2026
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Dr No
Film (1962). Eon/United Artists. Directed by Terence Young. Written by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, Berkely Mather, based on Dr No (1958) by Ian Fleming. Cast includes Ursula Andress, Sean Connery, Jack Lord and Joseph Wiseman. 105 minutes. Colour. / This UK film was the first in the hugely successful James Bond series, at first loosely based on Fleming's novels and later featuring original stories. The villain, whose ...
Children of the Damned
Film (1963; vt Horror!). MGM. Directed by Anton M Leader. Written by Jack Briley, based on The Midwich Cuckoos (1957; rev 1958; vt Village of the Damned 1960) by John Wyndham. Cast includes Alan Badel, Barbara Ferris, Ian Hendry and Bessie Love. 90 minutes. Black and white. / This UK film is not a sequel to the successful Village of the Damned (1960); it is a ...
Far Sector
US Online Magazine that paid professional SFWA rates, that ran from April 1998 to January 2007, 72 issues, published by Clocktower Fiction, San Diego, California, edited by John T Cullen. Early issues were irregular but it strove for a monthly schedule which it achieved through 2001 to 2003 before becoming bimonthly in 2004, quarterly in 2005 and monthly again in 2006. It was launched under the title Outside but that was also the name of a backpacking ...
Hao Jingfang
(1984- ) Chinese author whose writing displays a poignant Sense of Wonder at the meteoric development that China has seen during her own lifetime (compare to Guo Xiaolu), and a recurring interest in what she herself has termed "the history of inequality". As a child, Hao was inspired to become a scientist by reading the educational magazine Shiwan ge Weishenme ["100,000 ...
Colomb, Philip Howard
(1831-1899) UK naval officer and author of several works on naval strategy; he was the main author [with a number of colleagues, see Checklist] of The Great War of 189–: A Forecast (2 January-21 May 1891 Black and White as "The Great War of 1892"; dated 1893 but 1892), a highly detailed Future War description of a very wide-flung "Great War" which begins in the Balkans with an attempted assassination, leading to a conflict where Germany ...
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 ...