SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 25 June 2025
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 23 June 2025
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Outer Planets
For a long while, relatively little attention was paid in sf to the planets beyond Jupiter. Of them only Saturn was known to the ancients – Uranus was discovered in 1781, Neptune in 1846 and Pluto in 1930 – and it is therefore the only outer planet featured in Athanasius Kircher's and Emanuel Swedenborg's interplanetary tours. Uranus, however, is included in the anonymous ...
Gudynas, Peter
(1954- ) British artist, long a resident of Birmingham, though he has also lived in London; his childhood fondness for sf books, films, and television programs inspired a lifelong interest in the genre. A BA in Graphic Design from Lanchester Polytechnic (now called Coventry University) led in 1976 to his first assignment to paint sf book covers, for Panther, and he went on to produce covers for many other British and American publishers, including ...
Mysterious Island
Film (1961). American Films/Columbia. Produced by Charles H Schneer. Directed by Cy Endfield. Written by John Prebble, Daniel Ullman and Crane Wilbur, based on L'île mystérieuse (1874-1875; trans W H G Kingston as The Mysterious Island 1875) by Jules Verne. Cast includes Michael Callan, Michael Craig, Joan Greenwood and Herbert Lom. 100 minutes. Colour. / This is a jovial ...
Dirac, Hugh
(? - ) UK medical doctor and author of an sf novel, The Profit of Doom (1970), in which a surgeon (see Medicine) implants brain cells from a foetus into the body of a diseased millionaire, who then gains Immortality. [JC]
Stannard, Russell
(1931- ) UK physicist and author, much of whose nonfiction attempts to reconcile modern science and Religion. He is of sf interest for the Uncle Albert series of didactic tales for relatively young readers beginning with The Time and Space of Uncle Albert (1989). The structure of the sequence – children present Uncle Albert with questions, which he answers through guided tours of the physical universe – ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...