SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 8 August 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 3 August 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Film (1989). Interscope Communications/Soisson-Murphey/De Laurentiis. Director Stephen Herek. Written by Chris Matheson, Ed Solomon. Cast includes Robert V Barron, Terry Camilleri, George Carlin, Al Leong, Keanu Reeves, Jane Wiedlin and Alex Winter. 89 minutes. Colour. / Because the tranquillity of future life depends on the cultural changes brought about by a late-twentieth-century rock band called Wyld Stallyns, an emissary from the future named Rufus (Carlin) undergoes ...
Invisible Boy, The
Film (1957). Pan/MGM. Directed by Herman Hoffman. Written by Cyril Hume, based on "Invisible Boy" (23 June 1956 Saturday Evening Post; vt "The Brain Child" in Tomorrow's Gift, coll 1958) by Edmund Cooper. Cast includes Philip Abbott, Diane Brewster, Richard Eyer and Harold J Stone. 90 minutes. Black and white. / In this well-written and well-made ...
Sierra i Fabra, Jordi
(1947- ) Prolific science fiction, fantasy, horror and mainstream writer, mainly of Young Adult literature and books for children in Spanish and Catalan. He has published more than fifty fantastic-themed books in Spain and Latin America, out of more than five hundred published books. His works have been translated into more than twelve languages and some of them adapted for ...
Ashley, Mike
Working name of UK editor and researcher Michael Raymond Donald Ashley (1948- ), who has a special expertise in the history of magazine sf, fantasy and weird fiction; for this large body of significant work, he was given the Pilgrim Award for 2002. Ashley's first major work as an anthology editor was the four-volume The History of the Science Fiction Magazine, whose components are ...
mother! [film]
Film (2017). Paramount Pictures presents a Protozoa production. Directed and written by Darren Aronofsky. Cast includes Jovan Adepo, Javier Bardem, Brian Gleeson, Domhall Gleeson, Ed Harris, Jennifer Lawrence, Laurence Leboeuf, Stephen McHattie, Michelle Pfeiffer, Amanda Warren and Kristen Wiig. 121 minutes. Colour. / A woman and her environment are threatened by the fandom of a demiurge. / This allegory of the patriarchal basis of ...
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 ...