SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 12 April 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 April 2026
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Martin, Michael A
(? - ) US author, always in collaboration with Andy Mangels, of numerous Ties, most of them contributed to the Star Wars universe. The Roswell sequence, also with Mangels, is tied to the Television series. [JC]
Slick
A term that emerged in the 1930s, originally as "slick-paper magazine" to distinguish what many regarded as the quality magazines from the Pulps. The slicks were also known as the "heavies" or "glossies", because they were printed on coated stock to allow better reproduction of photographs, as much for advertisements as for the editorial content, which made each individual issue considerably heavier than a pulp. The "glossies" had been around for far longer than the ...
Montague, C E
(1867-1928) UK editor and journalist, with the Manchester Guardian from 1890 to 1925, a span only broken by active service in World War One; as an author he is of interest for his Future War Satire, Right Off the Map (1927), in which two Ruritanian republics, Porto and Ria, are pitted against one another at the behest of a profiteer, to little avail; ...
Quantum Computers
A still largely theoretical but eagerly researched breed of Computers which use quantum superposition to deal simultaneously with all possible values which can be represented as "qubits" (quantum bits, as opposed to conventional computer bits representing 0 or 1) in a quantum register. Experimental devices with small numbers of qubits have been tested; if workable on a larger scale, the technology should be capable of processing speeds vastly greater than normal ...
Astounding Stories Yearbook
One of the many reprint Digest magazines published by Sol Cohen's Ultimate Publishing Co, reprinting material from Amazing Stories from the 1930s and 1940s. Two issues were released in 1970, the second under the title Astounding SF. Cohen's use of such a celebrated magazine title (see Astounding) was thought by fans to be cheeky. [BS/PN/MA] links / ...
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 ...