SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 11 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.
Site updated on 7 July 2025
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Total Annihilation
Videogame (1997). Cavedog Entertainment (CE). Designed by Chris Taylor. Platforms: Win (1997); Mac (1999). / Total Annihilation is a Real Time Strategy game, noted for its innovative design. It introduced many new features to the gameplay seen in previous RTS games such as Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn (1995) (see ...
Transmutation
According to tradition (though many prefer a more mystical interpretation), the great goal of those proto-Scientists the alchemists was the transmutation of elements – specifically of base metals, usually lead, into gold, by means of the elusive Philosopher's Stone. Examples of gold-making facilitated by sf Inventions rather than the devices of fantasy include J B Harris-Burland's ...
Bone, J F
(1916-2006) US veterinarian, in the US Veterinary Corps for many years until 1976; subsequently a professor of veterinary medicine and author who began publishing sf with "Survival Type" in Galaxy for March 1957. His first sf novel, The Lani People (1962), is his most memorable, perhaps especially for the guilty and/or atavistic pleasures afforded male readers through his depiction of the Alien Lani, human-like females only ...
Pandemic
A plague is a disease that travels from somewhere else. Many afflictions which are difficult to transmit, like leprosy, or the legion of cancers, are not normally described here, therefore, even loosely, as plagues, and are not treated in this encyclopedia under the Pandemic heading, a term here applied to contagions that invade. Various pestilences – including bubonic or pneumonic plague – do of course meet that loose criterion. Their pedigree is deep; invasive plagues have ...
Low, A M
(1888-1956) UK academic, engineer, inventor and author, president of the British Interplanetary Society for a period; for much of his career he addressed himself and was addressed as "Professor", but without a position to justify the use. During his service in World War One in 1917, he was partially responsible for the Invention of a flying bomb, though it seems never to have been used (he claimed it was essentially identical to a ...
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 ...