SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 11 March 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 9 March 2026
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Advertising
There is a long sf tradition, often tinged with Satire, of speculation about future advertising. Rudyard Kipling's With the Night Mail (November 1905 McClure's; rev 1909 chap) includes sedately conventional ads for Airships and their trappings, supposedly from a magazine of the story's year 2000. More often, the latest ...
Hile, William H
(1869-1943) US geologist, entrepreneur – he founded the African Ostrich Farm and Feather Company in 1909 to sell ostrich products, profits (which proved to be as scarce as hens' teeth) to be shared with its African suppliers – and author of a Lost Race novel, The Ostrich for the Defense (1912), set in the heart of Asia Minor, where a white queen named Zar rules a benign Utopia on lines enhancing social ...
Bats
Film (1999). Destination Films presents a Louis Morneau film. Directed by Louis Morneau. Written by John Logan. Cast includes Bob Gunton, Carlos Jacott, Leon, Dina Meyer and Lou Diamond Phillips. 91 minutes. Colour. / A US biological Weapons programme gone awry is the background of this formulaic Monster Movie. Having transformed Indonesian flying foxes into intelligent omnivorous killing machines, a mad military ...
Prix du Danger, Le
French/Yugoslav Film (1983; vt The Prize of Peril). Swanie/TFI/UGC-Top 1/Avala. Directed by Yves Boisset. Written by Boisset, Jan Curtelin, based on "The Prize of Peril" (May 1958 F&SF) by Robert Sheckley. Cast includes Gérard Lanvin, Michel Piccoli and Marie-France Pisier. 98 minutes, cut to 88 minutes in English-dubbed version. Colour. / In this ...
Children of Men
Film (2006). Universal Pictures present a Strike Entertainment production in association with Hit and Run Productions. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Written by Cuarón & Timothy J Sexton and David Arata and Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby, based on The Children of Men (1992) by P D James. Cast includes Clare-Hope Ashitey, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Huston, Julianne Moore, Peter Mullan and Clive Owen. 109 minutes. Colour. ...
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 ...