SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 15 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.
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Allan, Mea
(1909-1982) Scottish journalist – she was best-known as war correspondent and columnist for the Daily Herald – and author in whose Near Future novel, Change of Heart (1943), World War Two has been won by the Allies, but peace is threatened by a resurgence of Nazism. [JC]
Paulsen, Gary
(1939-2021) US author who began publishing in 1966, at first mostly for adults, but who became best known for his fiction for the Young Adult market, where he was a significant figure since around 1980; he was highly admired for his pared-down but subtle style, and for his sensitive evocations of the American wilderness, which is central to much of his work. His first sf novels, beginning with The Implosion Effect (1976), are ...
Demolition Man
Film (1993). Silver Pictures/Warner Bros. Directed by Marco Brambilla. Written by Daniel Waters, Robert Reneau, Peter M Lenkov, based on a story by Lenkov and Reneau. Cast includes Sandra Bullock, Bob Gunton, Nigel Hawthorne, Denis Leary, Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone. 115 minutes. Colour. / In 1997 Los Angeles (see California), macho cop John Spartan (Stallone) – nicknamed "the demolition man" – is ...
AMBA
Russian animated short film in two parts (1994-1995; original title Amba Film Pervyy). Ekran. Directed and written by Gennady Tischenko. Voice cast includes Vsevolod Abdulov, Lyudmila Gnilova and Aleksandr Lushchik. 8 minutes and 10 minutes. Colour. / A sequel to Tischenko's earlier two-part serial Geona's Vampires (1991) and Masters of Geona (1992), this again features Inspector Yanin of the ...
Cook, Rick
Working name of US author James Richard Cook (1944-2022), who began publishing work of genre interest with "Mortality" in Analog for January 1987; he subsequently published several sf stories in this journal, and a very large number of nonfiction pieces on computer technology. As an author of fiction he is most noted for his fantasy, primarily for the Wizard sequence of Technofantasy-tinged tales – beginning with ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...