SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 5 December 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 1 December 2025
Sponsor of the day: John Howard
Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Baker, Sharon
(1938-1991) US author of three Planetary Romances – all set on the planet Naphar – whose richly layered Fantasy surface conceals much sf underpinning: Naphar's poisonous environment has an sf explanation; the planet has been colonized by humans who interbred with the native race; and contacts with galactic civilization remain active. Quarreling, They Met the Dragon (1984) describes the coming to ...
Roshwald, Mordecai
(1921-2015) Polish-born academic and author, in Palestine/Israel 1934-1955, afterwards in the US. He is best known for his first sf novel, Level 7 (1959; text restored 2004), which is deeply coloured by political concern about our nuclear civilization. A military officer describes his feelings and duties from within a great Underground bomb shelter, 4000 feet below the world gradually being demolished above him as ...
Man's Best Friend
Film (1993). New Line Cinema/Roven-Cavello Entertainment. Written and directed by John Lafia. Cast includes John Cassini, Robert Costanzo, Lance Henriksen, Fredric Lehne and Ally Sheedy. 87 minutes. Colour. / Routine sf/horror movie, with moments of black humour: Dr Jarret (Henriksen) has been performing animal experiments at the EMAX research lab, and has created a super killer guard Dog through DNA splicing, some of the imported genes coming from other ...
Essex House
A short-lived (1968-1969) Los Angeles publishing imprint, a subsidiary of Milton Luros's Parliament News, Inc, specializing in highbrow erotica. Many Essex House novelists were young serious writers (several of them poets), and some used scenarios drawn from sf and fantasy, including future Dystopias, as settings for their pornography. About half the 42 titles published by Essex House were sf/fantasy; they included novels by Philip José ...
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 ...