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.
Site updated on 14 July 2025
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Man With Nine Lives, The
Film (1940). Columbia Pictures Corporation. Produced by Irving Briskin and Wallace MacDonald (uncredited). Directed by Nick Grinde (as Nick Grindé). Written by Karl Brown from an original story by Harold Shumate. Cast includes Boris Karloff, Roger Pryor and Jo Ann Sayers. 74 minutes. Black and white. / Dr Tim Mason (Pryor) is working on Cryogenic treatment of chronic medical problems, continuing the work of the ...
Greer, Tom
Working name of Irish surgeon Thomas Greer (1846/1847-1904) for his writing; he lived in the UK from about 1880. In his A Modern Daedalus (1885) an Irish lad invents a one-man flying device (see Inventions; Transportation) which straps to the shoulders. The UK Government attempts to persuade him to use it against Ireland. Though he longs simply for peace, UK military action forces him onto the side of the ...
Payn, James
(1830-1898) UK author and editor whose 100+ books cover a wide variety of genres, his sf being comparatively inconspicuous. The Cruise of the Anti-Torpedo (1871 chap) anonymous is a typical Future-War tale, one of many written in direct response to George T Chesney's The Battle of Dorking (May 1871 Blackwood's Magazine; 1871 chap) (see ...
Mayo, W S
(1811-1895) US physician and author whose Kaloolah; Or, Journeyings to the Djébel Kumri: An Autobiography of Jonathan Romer (1849) [for vts see Checklist] may have taken its hoax-like, factoid-filled story – with Mayo himself posing as the editor of Romer's manuscript – from Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of A Gordon Pym, of Nantucket (1838), and its exotic Fantastic Voyage ...
Stranger Things
US online tv series (2016-current). 21 Laps Entertainment and Monkey Massacre for Netflix. Created by Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer. Written by Paul Dichter, Justin Doble, Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer, Jessica Mecklenburg, Jessie Nickson-Lopez and Alison Tatlock. Directed by Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer and Shawn Levy. Cast includes Millie Bobby Brown, Joe Keery, David Harbour, Charlie Heaton, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Matthew Modine, Shannon Purser, Winona Ryder, Noah Schnapp and Finn ...
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 ...