SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 10 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
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Osborn, Christopher
(? - ) UK concert pianist, teacher and author whose first novel, A Sense of Touch (1989), is nonfantastic; his second, Unbound (2017), sensitively depicts a molecular biologist's unrelenting search for Immortality through Drugs, during the course of which he becomes addicted to a drug known as Telos, which treats ageing as an auto-immune disorder. A ...
Cole, Robert W
(1869-1937) UK photographer (having changed his mind after studying law at Balliol, Oxford, with a view to becoming a barrister) and author who was active during the first decade of the twentieth century. His first and best novel, The Struggle for Empire: A Story of the Year 2236 (1900), takes the Future War story to its logical, grim conclusion. The Anglo-Saxon Federation – ostensibly a Utopia with ...
They Live
Film (1988). Alive Films. Directed by John Carpenter. Written by Frank Armitage (pseudonym of Carpenter), based on "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" (November 1963 F&SF) by Ray Nelson. Cast includes Keith David, Meg Foster and Roddy Piper. 94 minutes. Colour. / After several not very successful films for major studios (Starman [1984], Christine ...
Buiza, Carlos
Working name of Spanish editor, author and screenwriter Carlos Álvarez Buiza de Diego (1940-2024). He belongs to the so-called second generation of Spanish science fiction writers, along with Domingo Santos, Gabriel Bermúdez Castillo, Ángel Torres Quesada, Carlos Saiz Cidoncha, Juan G Atienza (1930-2011), Alfonso ...
Prince of Darkness
Film (1987). Alive. Directed by John Carpenter. Written by Martin Quatermass (Carpenter). Cast includes Lisa Blount, Jameson Parker, Donald Pleasence and Victor Wong. 101 minutes. Colour. / An old priest, guardian of a vat containing Satan as a green liquid, dies. Young physicists are brought to the derelict church by another worried priest (Pleasence) to analyse the strange powers here. The church is surrounded by bag ladies and vagrants (one being ...
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 ...