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Saturday 7 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 6 February 2026
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Sallis, James
(1944-2026) US musician, poet and author, briefly active in New Worlds during its Michael Moorcock-directed New-Wave phase; he began to publish work of genre interest in this context with "Kazoo" (August 1967 New Worlds) and co-edited the magazine 1968-1969. His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work ...
Miller, Steve
(1950-2024) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Shalgiel" for Flux Magazine in 1976, one of his few solo works, as he soon began collaborating with Sharon Lee with "The Naming of Kinzel: The Foolish" (June 1984 Fantasy Book); all his novels have been with Lee, primarily the Liaden Universe sequence of Space Opera tales, set in expansive (though not adventurously ...
Vaughan, Herbert M
(1870-1948) Welsh local historian, bibliographer and author, administratively involved in World War One though not in active service. He is of sf interest primarily for two novels. Meleager: A Fantasy (1916) is set on a miniature version of Earth and the Solar System (see Great and Small), where a Eugenic Dystopia ...
27th Day, The
Film (1957). Romson Productions/Columbia. Directed by William Asher. Written by John Mantley, based on his The Twenty-Seventh Day (1956). Cast includes Gene Barry, Valerie French, Azenath Janti, Arnold Moss, Stefan Schnabel and George Voskovec. 75 minutes. Black and white. / Some moments of good sense and sensible conversation can be extracted from the contorted implausibility and terrifying moral implications of this film, which was ...
Tomb of Terror
US Comic (1952-1954). 16 issues. Harvey Publications Inc.. Artists include Joe Certa, Lee Elias, Moe Marcus and Rudy Palais. Scriptwriters include Bob Powell. 36 pages. four long strips and one (occasionally two) short text stories each issue; plus short strips and one-page, purportedly non-fiction, pieces as filler (we are assured Shangri-La exists, as do lost worlds with prehistoric monsters). / For most of its run Tomb of Terror published ...
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 ...