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Sunday 7 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
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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 ...
Tushingham, Mark
(1962- ) Canadian environmental policy analyst and author whose Vision of Hell sequence beginning with Hotter Than Hell (2005) sustainedly argues the Near-Future consequences of Climate Change, which include an Invasion of Canada by an America looking for water; in Hell on Earth (2008) those consequences are intensified. The ...
Meyers, Richard S
(1953- ) US author who publishes also as Wade Barker. His sf novels are of relatively little interest, though the Doomstar sequence – Doom Star (1978; rev vt Doomstar 1985) and Doom Star Number Two (1979; rev vt Return to Doomstar 1985) – are moderately entertaining Space Operas. The Book of the Undead is horror [see Checklist]. ...
Staniland, Meaburn
(1914-1992) UK antiquarian bookseller, editor and author, probably a descendant of the nineteenth-century politician Meaburn Staniland (1809-1898), Liberal Member of Parliament for Boston, Lincolnshire; with Penguin Books in the 1960s-1970s. His sf novel Back to the Future (1947) – which is in no way a precursor of Back to the Future (1985) and its sequels – sends its protagonist by defective ...
Monster Movies
A term colloquially used for a very specific genre of film, usually borderline sf. A monster movie – sometimes called a Creature Feature – must contain the unexpected appearance, normally in a serene setting, of a creature (or many creatures) hostile to humanity. The nature of the creature is usually revealed gradually, and its attacks normally increase in severity. It may be a mutated animal or human (see Mutants), an Alien, 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 ...