SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 14 March 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 March 2026
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Eliade, Mircea
(1907-1986) Romanian academic, in UK, Portugal and France from 1940, resident in the US from 1956, most famous as a philosopher of comparative religion [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], though he was a prolific author of fiction, much of it fantastic, from the publication of his first, precocious tale, "Cum am găsit piatr filosofală" ["How I found the Philosopher's Stone"] (1921 ...
Asteroid [tv]
US tv miniseries (1997). Davis Entertainment/NBC Studios for NBC-TV. Produced by Donna Ebbs, Phil Margo, and Christopher Morgan. Directed by Bradford May. Written by Robbyn Burger, and Scott Sturgeon. Cast includes Michael Biehn, Zachary Charles, John Lindsey, Annabella Sciorra and Anthony Zerbe. 120 minutes. Colour. / Astronomer Dr Lily McKee (Sciorra) discovers a huge Asteroid on a collision course with Earth, with the impact due in the very ...
Musgrave, David
(1973- ) UK artist and author whose first novel, Lambda (2022), is set in an Alternate World version of London co-inhabited by humans and lambdas, the latter being extremely tiny aquatic mammals, unregistered immigrants who establish a Wainscot Society in an unexpectedly welcoming United Kingdom. Sadly, a bombing unconnected to the lambdas excites the ...
Poole, W Scott
(1971- ) US academic and author whose studies in horror (see Horror in SF) include Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror (2014), a study of the actor Vampira (real name Maila Nurmi), most famous in an sf context for her appearance in Edward D Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1958); ...
Saturn [magazine]
US Digest-size magazine. Published by Robert C Sproul as Candar Publishing Company. Edited by Sproul with editorial consultant Donald A Wollheim, who actually selected the stories and assembled the issues. Five issues March 1957 to March 1958 (but see below for later incarnations). / Considering some of the contributors, there was surprisingly little of interest in the magazine: Harlan ...
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 ...