SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 9 June 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 8 June 2026
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Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author, active from around 1950, several of whose books focused on London, including Capital (1975), a complex set of era-switching meditations – including a Neanderthal man's thoughts about the future – on the deep mythos of the city. The novel influenced Michael Moorcock's Mother London (1988) (as the author acknowledged clearly), and similar later works by Iain ...
Closed Universe
This term is in no sense a synonym for Pocket Universe, a literary term which describes a particular kind of story; nor is it here used in its cosmological sense. A closed universe is a work or series whose characters and venues remain strictly under its author's control, and which is not open to fans or others to make uncopyrighted use of in Fanzines. In this sense, a Shared-World enterprise may ...
Blindness
Film (2008). Focus Features International presents an Alliance Films, Fox Filmes do Brasil, GAGA Communications, Asmik Ace Entertainment, Mikado, IFF/CNV, Téléfilm Canada, Ancine and Potboiler Productions production in association with TV Limited, Corus Entertainment, Fiat, BNDES and Cinema Investment with Rhombus Media, O2 Filmes and Bee Vine Pictures. Directed by Fernando Meirelles. Written by Don McKellar, adapted from the novel Ensaio sobre a cegueira ...
Hawkins, Peter
(1926- ) UK bank clerk whose first sf sale was "Life Cycle" in New Worlds for Spring 1951; his 14 stories under his own name all appeared in that magazine and in Science Fantasy over the following decade. He published a routine sf adventure, The Plant from Infinity (1954) as by Karl Maras, a House Name. [JC]
Starling, James
(1992- ) UK author whose first novel, Arteess: Conflict (2013), is a Military SF tale set within the eponymous Virtual Reality world, which has been designed as a totally immersive Computer Wargame; the players (or inhabitants) of this game believe initially that their actions have no consequences beyond Arteess. Sequels are projected. [JC]
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 ...