SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 15 January 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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.
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Phillips, Alexander M
(1907-1991) US author and long-time sf fan, based in Philadelphia, who wrote a small body of science fiction, fantasy and nonfiction. He was a technical writer and draughtsman as well as an amateur naturalist and photographer. His first professionally published story was "The Death of the Moon" (February 1929 Amazing), in which advanced Aliens from the Moon attempt to conquer Earth in the ...
Lee, Walt
(1931-2014) US film-writer, historian and consultant with a 1954 BS in physics. He was best known in genre circles for his monumental, self-published Reference Guide to Fantastic Films: Volume 1 A-F (1972), Volume 2 G-O (1973) and Volume 3 P-Z (1974), written with Bill Warren (the credit on each title page is "compiled by Walt Lee, assisted by Bill Warren") and containing upwards of 20,000 entries. ...
Final Countdown, The
Film (1980). Bryna Company/United Artists. Directed by Don Taylor. Written by David Ambrose, Gerry Davis, Thomas Hunter, Peter Powell, based on a story by Hunter, Powell, Ambrose. Cast includes Kirk Douglas, Charles Durning, James Farentino, Katharine Ross and Martin Sheen. 105 minutes. Colour. / The Nimitz, a (real) aircraft carrier on manoeuvres off Hawaii in 1980, is caught in a strange storm which turns out to be a time-warp (see ...
Rocketeer, The
Film (1991; vt The Adventures of the Rocketeer). Walt Disney (see The Walt Disney Company). Directed by Joe Johnston. Written by Danny Bilson, Paul DeMeo. Cast includes Alan Arkin, Bill Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Timothy Dalton and Paul Sorvino. 108 minutes. Colour. Based on The Rocketeer (1982-1995), a Comic created by Dave Stevens (1955-2008). / This enjoyable big-budget ...
Hill, Carol
(1942- ) US author whose first novel, Jeremiah 8:20 (1970), is a raucous Fabulation about the Apocalypse, whose protagonist becomes (or does not become) Master of the Universe. Her second, Let's Fall in Love (1974), ornately spoofs Sex, pornography and Politics in a vaguely fantastic 1970s milieu. The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer (1985; vt ...
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 ...