SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 27 January 2022
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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Biology
The growth of knowledge in the biological sciences has lagged behind that in the physical sciences; Newton's synthesis of Physics and Astronomy anticipated the linking of biology and chemistry by 200 years. The age of mechanical inventions began in the early nineteenth century, that of biological inventions is only just beginning, in the wake of the elucidation (during the 1960s) of the "genetic code" which controls naturally occurring biological processes of manufacture. Writers of speculative ...
Paul
Film (2011). Columbia Pictures in association with Relativity Media presents a Working Title/Big Talk production. Directed by Gregg Motola. Written by Frost and Pegg. Cast includes Jason Bateman, Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Seth Rogen (voice), Sigourney Weaver and Kristen Wiig. 104 minutes. Colour. / Two British sf fans on a US road trip from Comic-Con via the UFO trail pick up a sweary, wisecracking Roswell Alien newly escaped from decades of government custody, and abet his flight as Federal ...
Blade Runner 2049
Film (2017). Columbia Pictures with Warner Bros and Alcon Entertainment presents a Scott Free Productions film in association with Torridon Films, 16:14 Entertainment and Thunderbird Films. Directed by Denis Villeneuve. Written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green, based on characters from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) by Philip K Dick. Cast includes Hiam Abbass, Ana de Armas, Dave Bautista, Mackenzie Davis, Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, Sylvia Hoeks, Carla Juri, Jared Leto, Edward ...
Janus/Aurora
US feminist sf Fanzine (1975-1990) edited from Madison, Wisconsin, by Jan Bogstad, Jeanne Gomoll and Diane Martin (#1-#3 by Bogstad, #4-#17 by Bogstad and Gomoll, #18-#26 by Martin). Janus (which became Aurora with #19) was born as Feminism began making itself felt in sf in the mid-1970s. It carried articles by Samuel R Delany, Suzette Haden Elgin, Joanna Russ and Jessica Amanda Salmonson (1950- ), and interviews with Octavia Butler, Suzy McKee Charnas, Jo Clayton, ...
Scheherazade
UK small-press Semiprozine, 1991-2008, produced from Brighton by Elizabeth Counihan, editor, and Deirdre Counihan, art editor (later co-editor); 30 undated issues of changing size and frequency. Initially quarterly but twice yearly from 1993 and later irregular; #1-#14 were A5 size with 32pp or more in plain one-colour covers bearing only the Scheherazade logo and issue number; #15-#23 expanded to 36pp or more with two-colour pictorial covers; finally #24-#30 were A4, usually 45pp, with covers ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...