SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 14 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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Rutter, Owen
(1889-1944) US-born soldier, publisher, author and poet, in UK from an early age, in active service during World War One. His Tiadatha sequence, a book-length Parody of The Song of Hiawatha (1855) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) beginning with The Song of Tiadatha (1919 The Balkan News as by Klip-Klip; 1919), is set during and after the Great War; it contains fantasy elements. ...
I, Robot
Film (2004). Twentieth Century Fox/Davis Entertainment. Directed by Alex Proyas. Bruce Greenwood. Written by Jeff Vintar, Akiva Goldsman, based on I, Robot (coll 1950) by Isaac Asimov. Cast includes Bridget Moynahan, Will Smith and Alan Tudyk. 115 minutes. Colour. / In the decades since the publication of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot (coll 1950), rumours often appeared of a possible cinematic ...
Meyer, Deon
(1958- ) South African author who writes in Afrikaans, most of his works being nonfantastic thrillers, chiefly in the Benny Griessel sequence; active from the early 1990s. He is of sf interest for the Near Future Koors (2016; trans K L Seegers as Fever 2017), set in a South Africa almost entirely depopulated by a Pandemic. The father and son ...
Species II
Film (1998). Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed by Peter Medak. Written by Chris Brancato. Cast includes James Cromwell, Marg Helgenberger, Natasha Henstridge, Justin Lazard, Michael Madsen and Mykelti Williamson. 93 minutes. Colour. / Although released theatrically, Species II plays more like a direct-to-video sequel to Species (1995). On the first manned mission to Mars, astronauts collect rock samples which contain mysterious ...
Brown, Molly
(? - ) Working name of American-born UK stand-up comedienne and author Doris Mary Brown, who began publishing work of genre interest with "Bad Timing" (December 1991 Interzone); this won the BSFA Award for best short story of that year. The black humour of the tale – its inept Time-Travelling protagonist basically leaves the woman whose photograph he has ...
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 ...