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Thursday 21 May 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 18 May 2026
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Spradlin, Michael P
(1960-2026) US bookseller, sales executive and author who began to publish work of genre interest with the Young Adult Spy Goddess diptych comprising Live and Let Shop (2005) and To Hawaii, with Love (2006), combining spy-thriller and supernatural elements; the titles echo those of James Bond novels by Ian Fleming. Of direct sf interest is the energetic Killer Species sequence ...
Sleeper
Film (1973). Rollins-Joffe Productions/United Artists. Directed by Woody Allen. Written by Allen, Marshall Brickman. Cast includes Allen, John Beck, Mary Gregory, Diane Keaton and Don Keefer. 88 minutes. Colour. / The plot device of having a man from the present suddenly finding himself in the future (this time through Cryonics) is nearly always used to comment on contemporary society rather than to speculate about the future (see ...
Logorama
French animated short film (2009). H5. Directed by François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy, and Ludovic Houplain. Written by François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy, Ludovic Houplain and Gregory J Pruss. Voice cast includes Sherman Augustus and Bob Stephenson. 16 minutes. Colour. / In Los Angeles, California, two snacking cops (Augustus and Stephenson) are notified of a suspect in their vicinity: ...
Bleunard, A
(1852-1905) French academic and author whose publishers sometimes described him as a "doctor of science". His sf novel, La Babylone électrique (1888; trans "Frank Linstow White" as Babylon Electrified: The History of an Expedition Undertaken to Restore Ancient Babylon by the Power of Electricity, and How it Resulted 1889), whose English subtitle does much to describe its contents, is an exuberant demonstration of the vaunting ambitiousness of ...
Ruined Earth
Term used in this encyclopedia for the longer-range sf aftermath of Disaster and Holocaust scenarios. First comes the cataclysm, then the Post-Holocaust struggle with a general emphasis on survival and adaptation. If humanity avoids extinction, the details of past technology and the fall of civilization are apt to become increasingly blurred – and often mythologized – with each new ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...