SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 16 July 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.
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D'Anvers, N
Pseudonym of author and translator Nancy Regina Emily Meugens (1844-1933), who clocked her Belgian ancestry ["Nancy from Antwerp"] through the name she chose for all her translations of novels by Jules Verne. In her own right, as by Mrs A G Bell or Mrs Arthur Bell, she was the author of several popularizing guides to Western art and individual artists, the best known of these being James McNeill Whistler (1904) because he disapproved of her. She ...
Inception
Film (2010). Warner Brothers Pictures in association with Legendary Pictures and Syncopy. Written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Cast includes Michael Caine, Marion Cotillard, Leonardo di Caprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page and Ken Watanabe. 143 minutes. Colour. / Preposterous but sensationally successful inner-space heist movie about a team of Dream-Hacking psychological ...
Thought Experiment
In Physics, a thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment is a common means of exploring the implications of scientific assumptions without resorting to actual apparatus. Einstein's development of Relativity employed thought experiments about light signals exchanged between observers whose relative speed was a significant fraction of the speed of light, not easily attained by any real observer or (at that time) measuring device. The ...
Whispers
US Semiprozine published and edited by Stuart David Schiff, initially at Fayetteville, North Carolina but from issue #9 (December 1976) from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where David Drake held the fort, serving as assistant editor, and finally from issue #13/14 (Fall 1979) from Binghamton, New York. The magazine ran from July 1973 to Fall 1987, and although the final individual issue was ...
Dexter's Laboratory
US animated tv series (1996-2003). Cartoon Network, Hanna-Barbera Cartoons. Created by Genndy Tartakovsky. Directors include Robert Alvarez, John McIntyre, Rob Renzetti, Chris Savino and Genndy Tartakovsky. Writers include Walt Dohrn, Zeke Kamm, Seth MacFarlane, Cindy Morrow, Jason Butler Rote, Michael Ryan, Chris Savino and Genndy Tartakovsky. Voice cast includes Christine Cavanaugh, Kathryn Cressida, Eddie Deezen, ...
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 ...