SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 10 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
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Wood, Nick
(1961-2023) Zambian-born clinical psychologist and author, raised in South Africa and USA, later resident in the UK, He began to publish work of genre interest with "African Shadows" as Nicholas Wood in Scheherazade 18 dated 1999, his first professional sale being "God in the Box" in Interzone for March 2003. His debut novel, The Stone Chameleon (2004), Equipoisally mixes a depiction of ...
Avengers, The [film]
Film (2012); vt Marvel The Avengers US, Marvel Avengers Assemble UK & Ireland. Marvel Studios in association with Paramount Pictures. Written and directed by Joss Whedon. Story by Zac Penn and Whedon, based on the Marvel Comic by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Cast includes Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Clark Gregg, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, ...
Chetwode, R D
(? -? ) UK author, probably pseudonymous, active during the 1890s. The Marble City: Being the Strange Adventures of Three Boys (1895) features a South Pacific Island Lost World whose Aryan-Lemurian inhabitants boast high attainments. Nevertheless the three heroes marooned there soon make their escape, enriched. [JC]
Dream Theater
US prog rock band, formed in 1985 by guitarist John Petrucci (1967- ), bassist John Ro Myung (1967- ) and Michael Portnoy (1967- ). Their first album When Dream and Day Unite (1989) is an energetic reworking of classic 1970s prog-rock musical idiom, and included the long song "The Killing Hand", which concerns a future war between an evil genius and a messiah-figure. The various tracks on Images and Words ...
Three Stooges Films
The Three Stooges were a US comedy team who debuted in vaudeville (music-hall) as part of Ted Healy and His Stooges in 1922 and went on to make 190 or more short films for Columbia Pictures, characterized like their stage act by often violent and abusive farce and slapstick. Long-running members were Larry Fine (1902-1975) and Moe Howard (1897-1975), with the third Stooge role variously taken by Howard's brothers Shemp Howard (1895-1955) and Jerome "Curly" Howard (1903-1952), by Joe Besser ...
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 ...