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
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Maitland, Derek
(1943-2019) UK war photographer and author whose sf Satires – T Minus Tower (1971), about a proposed transfer of the eponymous tower into space as a Space-Habitat hotel, and The Alpha Experience (1974) – exhibit a certain apocalyptic flippancy but failed to target coming UK trends with any real accuracy. [JC]
Montague, Charles Howard
(1858-1889) US editor, journalist and author whose Two Strokes of the Bell: A Strange Story (1886) deals melodramatically with Amnesia in a supernatural frame. Of more sf interest is The Doctor's Mistake: Or What Myrta Saw: An Experiment with a Life (1888) with Clement Milton Hammond, where a complexly melodramatic plot – at least one Reincarnation seems to ...
Carnacki
Thomas Carnacki is an early fictional Occult Detective [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], who, unlike most such investigators, uses scientific means to investigate hauntings. He was created by William Hope Hodgson with five Club Stories that ran in The Idler in 1910, plus a sixth in New Magazine in ...
Adam Adamant Lives!
UK tv series (1966-1967). BBC. Produced by Verity Lambert. Directed by Moira Armstrong, Laurence Bourne, Anthea Browne-Wilkinson, Philip Dudley, Leonard Lewis, Ridley Scott, William Slater and others. Writers included Brian Clemens and many others. Created by Donald Cotton, Harris. Cast includes Peter Ducrow, Juliet Harmer, Gerald Harper and Jack May. 29 50-minute episodes in two ...
Island, The
Film (2005). DreamWorks Pictures and Warner Bros Pictures present a Parkes/Macdonald production. Directed by Michael Bay. Written by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci. Cast includes Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi, Djimon Hounsou, Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor. 136 minutes. Colour. / The United States, 2019 CE. In a sterile, Underground community, the white-clad populace are taught that they are among ...
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 ...