SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 13 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 9 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: Conversation 2023
Carver, Jeffrey A
(1949-2026) US author who began publishing sf with "... Of No Return" in Fiction Magazine for 1974. His first novel, Seas of Ernathe (1976), which serves as an introduction to the loose Star Rigger sequence of Space Operas, showed early signs of a love of plot and thematic complexity which would take him some time, and several novels, to control. The continuation, Star Rigger's Way (1978), for instance, combines quest ...
Have Rocket, Will Travel
Film (1959). Columbia. Directed by David Lowell Rich. Written by Raphael Hayes. Cast includes Anna-Lisa, Robert Colbert, Jerome Cowan, Joe DeRita, Larry Fine, Moe Howard and Don Lamond. 76 minutes. Black and white. / The Three Stooges – Moe (Howard), Larry (Fine) and Curly Joe (DeRita) – are janitors working for a space programme that has had a series of unsuccessful flights. The problem seems to be the Rocket fuel formula, which means that ...
Tabori, George
Working name of Hungarian-born theatre director and playwright Gyorgi Tábori (1914-2007), brother of Paul Tabori, in UK from 1935, a UK citizen from 1941. He is not of direct sf interest, though his novels and plays set in World War Two, especially those dealing with the Holocaust, are so enraged and extreme in their telling that they seem fantastic; but they are not. [JC]
Barron, D G
(1922-2000) UK architect and author. In The Zilov Bombs (1962), unilateral UK nuclear disarmament has led to Soviet domination of all Europe (see Politics); after five years (by 1973) the underground is putting pressure on characters like the narrator, who ultimately solves his moral anxieties by detonating one of the eponymous devices, assassinating some Communist tyrants. [JC]
Short Circuit
Film (1986). Turman-Foster/Tri-Star. Directed by John Badham. Written by S S Wilson, Brent Maddock. Cast includes Steve Guttenberg, Brian McNamara, Ally Sheedy and Fisher Stevens. 98 minutes. Colour. / Military Robot Number Five, a prototype killing machine, is struck by lightning which endows it with sentience. It escapes from evil Nova Robotics, finding refuge with nice animal-lover Stephanie (Sheedy), who assumes it to be ...
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 ...