SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 12 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
Sponsor of the day: Ansible Editions
MacLaren, Bernard
(? - ) UK author whose sf novel Day of Misjudgment (1956) unusually represents the domination of society by Computers as more of a blessing than a curse, though the Walpurgisnacht setting of the tale may explain the reversal of values. [JC]
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
Film (1985). Kennedy Miller Productions. Directed by George Miller with George Ogilvie. Written by Terry Hayes, Miller. Cast includes Helen Buday, Mel Gibson, Paul Larsson, Bruce Spence, Frank Thring and Tina Turner. 107 minutes. Colour. / This Australian film, the second sequel to the Post-Holocaust movie Mad Max (1979), has lots of well-directed action but is more rambling and ...
Kepler, Johannes
(1571-1630) German astronomer, one-time assistant to Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) and later imperial mathematician and astrologer to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II. Kepler's contribution to Astronomy – most notably his three laws of planetary motion – provided vital groundwork for Newton's cosmological synthesis. In 1593 he prepared a dissertation on the heliocentric theory, which explained how events in the heavens would be ...
Pohl, Frederik
(1919-2013) US man-of-letters, professionally involved in the sf field as an editor, literary agent, fan and author since becoming active in American Fandom in his teens, his first published piece being a poem, "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna" (October 1937 Amazing) as by Elton V Andrews, and his first story proper – the first of well over 200 in an active professional career of more than seven decades (see ...
Carlsen, Ruth Christoffer
(1918-2006) US author in whose sf novel for Young Adult readers, Half-Past Tomorrow (1973), an adolescent boy discovers, after his head is damaged in an accident, that he has developed the power of Precognition, which allows him to read tomorrow's newspapers. [JC]
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...