SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 15 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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Murphy, John P
(? - ) US engineer and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Unintended Consequences" in Murphy's Blog for 11 March 2011, his best-known shorter work being the novella "The Liar" (March 2016 F&SF), whose protagonist finds that his routine dissimulations morph the world around him (see Horror in SF). Murphy's first novel, Red Noise (2020), is a ...
Space Cowboys
Film (2000). Malpaso Productions/Village Roadshow Pictures/Warner Brothers. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Ken Kaufman and Howard Klausen. Cast includes John Asher, Eli Craig, James Cromwell, Loren Dean, William Devane, Clint Eastwood, James Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Tommy Lee Jones, Matt McColm, Toby Stephens, Donald Sutherland and Billy Worley. 130 minutes. Colour with black and white opening sequence. / 1958. Shot in black and white (see ...
Crank!
US Semiprozine, Fall 1993 to #8 (undated 1998), initially quarterly but with a two-year gap before the final issue #8 in Spring 1988, trade paperback format, edited and published by Bryan Cholfin from Cambridge, Massachusetts. / The uncompromising style of Cholfin's Broken Mirrors Press (which has published worthy though uncommercial projects by writers such as David R Bunch and R A Lafferty) ...
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
US Serial Film (2008). Timescience Bloodclub/Mutant Enemy. Directed by Joss Whedon. Written (including songs) by Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, & Jed Whedon; lyrics by Joss Whedon, Tancharoen, and Jed Whedon; music by Joss Whedon and Jed Whedon. Cast includes Felicia Day, Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris and Simon Helberg. 3 episodes; 42 minutes total. Colour. / Written during the 2007-2008 ...
Melchiorri, Anthony J
(? - ) US biomedical engineer and author, often in collaboration with Nicholas Sanbury Smith, whose entry see for the joint Extinction Cycle: Dark Age sequence beginning with Extinction Shadow (2019). His other work is all solo. His first novel, which is like most of his work focused on heavily foregrounded action responses to planetary crises, is The God Organ (2014). His ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...