SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 16 September 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 14 September 2026
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Black Panther
Film (2018). Walt Disney Motion Pictures (see The Walt Disney Company) presents a Marvel Studios production. Directed by Ryan Coogler. Written by Joe Robert Cole and Ryan Coogler, based on a character created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966) who then starred in Marvel Comics's Jungle Action #6-#24 (September ...
Matrix, The
Film (1999). Warner Bros. Pictures in association with Village Roadshow Pictures and Groucho II Film Partnership presents a Silver Pictures production. Directed and written by Andy (now Lilly) Wachowski and Larry (now Lana) Wachowski. Cast includes Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving. 136 minutes. Colour. / A trail of digital clues, pursuits, and dislocations in reality leads hacker Neo (Reeves) to ...
Redal, Javier
Working name of Spanish author Francisco Javier Redal (1952-2006), who was by profession a high school science teacher. He published four novels and two novellas in collaboration with Juan Miguel Aguilera plus a dozen solo short stories; they met in 1977, as Aguilera was a student in the same high school where he worked, and published together a school sf Fanzine entitled Módulo ["Module"]. Redal was a prolific ...
McCullough, Colleen
(1937-2015) Working name of Australian author Colleen McCullough-Robinson, who remains most famous for The Thorn Birds (1977). In A Creed for the Third Millennium (1985), set in a Near Future America ravaged by Climate Change, a charismatic figure (see Messiahs) ambiguously revitalizes a disillusioned world. The Ladies of Missalonghi (1987) is a ...
Stoddard, Charles
Pseudonym of US author Charles Stanley Strong (1906-1962); titles under various other pseudonyms were nonfantastic. His sf novel, North of the Stars (1937), describes a clement Lost World near the North Pole, where a white queen rules a race of "primitive" "Eskimos". Stoddard should not be confused with the real American poet Charles Stoddard (1843-1909). [JC]
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 ...