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Sunday 14 June 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 8 June 2026
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Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author, active from around 1950, several of whose books focused on London, including Capital (1975), a complex set of era-switching meditations – including a Neanderthal man's thoughts about the future – on the deep mythos of the city. The novel influenced Michael Moorcock's Mother London (1988) (as the author acknowledged clearly), and similar later works by Iain ...
Phair, Colette
(1982- ) US author whose first novel, Nightmare in Silicon (2007), set in a Near Future where Medicine has sufficiently advanced to allow Identity Transfer of minds from diseased bodies to impervious Robot housings; the dying protagonist's experience of this process sharply evokes a range of Feminist ...
Whiz Comics
US Comic (1940-1953). Fawcett Publications. 155 issues (#2-#155, with two numbered as #3). Artists include C.C. Beck, Pete Costanza, Kurt Schaffenberger and Basil Wolverton. Scriptwriters include Otto Binder, Rod Reed, Basil Wolverton and Bill Woolfolk. Initially 68 pages, down to 36 by the end of its run. Initially with several long strips, declining to 3-4 as the page numbers reduced; there was also a short text story, plus short ...
Nichols, Thomas Low
(1815-1901) US journalist, hydrotherapist, social reformer and author whose Esperanza: My Journey Thither and What I Found There (part publication July 1855-December 1856 Nichols' Monthly; 1860) anonymous is an epistolary Lost Race tale in which many of Nichols' arguments – he was an advocate of free love, a supporter of universal suffrage (see Feminism), and a libertarian – are described as central to ...
World War III Breaks Out
Japanese film (1960). Original title Dai-sanji sekai taisen: Yonjû-ichi jikan no kyôfu; vt The Final War; vt World War III 41 Hours of Fear. Toei Company. Directed by Shigeaki Hidaka. Written by Hisataka Kai, based on a story by Shukan Shincho. Cast includes Michiko Hoshi, Yoshi Kato, Yukiko Nikaido, Yoshiko Mita and Tatsuo Umemiya. 75 minutes. Black and white. / The film opens with slides showing the corpses of babies ...
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 ...