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Saturday 11 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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Upstream Color
Film (2012). erbp. Written and directed by Shane Carruth. Cast includes Meredith Burke, Carruth, Kathy Carruth, Thiago Martins, Amy Seimetz and Andrew Sensenig. 96 minutes. Colour. / A conceptual designer (Seimetz) is infected with a mind-controlling Parasite (see Parasitism and Symbiosis) by a thief (Martins) who empties her accounts and leaves her with no memory of her ordeal; she and other victims are ...
Peake, Mervyn
(1911-1968) UK poet, artist and author, born in China, where he lived until he was twelve in a missionary compound, embedded into a land as strange to Western eyes as the country surrounding Gormenghast. He was initially better regarded as an artist than as a writer and, although he had published several volumes of Poetry during and after World War Two, the poetic density of Titus Groan (1946) was unexpected. Gormenghast (1950) is closely ...
Splice
Film (2010). Gaumont presents a Copperheart Entertainment/Dark Castle Entertainment production in association with Senator Entertainment Co. Directed by Vincenzo Natali. Written by Natali and Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor; story by Natali and Bryant. Cast includes Adrien Brody, Delphine Chanéac, Brandon McGibbon and Sarah Polley. 104 minutes. Colour. / A long-gestated homage – including an anonymous contribution by Jonathan ...
Ross, Ronald
(1857-1932) Indian-born medical doctor, physiologist and author, mostly in UK from the age of eight, brother of Charles Ross; he is of sf interest for The Child of Ocean (1889), a Robinsonade whose focus on the Pastoral upbringing of an initially voiceless child casts an Edenic light on the Island at the centre of the tale, though mythopoeic speculations ...
Smith, D Alexander
(1953- ) US investment banker and author who served as Treasurer of Science Fiction Writers of America 1987-1990 and has written several articles on Wargame strategy. The Marathon sequence comprising Marathon (1982), Rendezvous (1988) and Homecoming (1990) analyses in some depth a First Contact event, depicting with very considerable ...
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 ...