SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 5 October 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 5 October 2026
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Pow, Tom
(1950- ) Scottish poet and author of two Young Adult tales: Scabbit Isle (2003), set in a surreal townscape and countryside haunted by a cemetery where plague victims had been buried centuries earlier; and The Pack (2004), a Young Adult tale set in a Dystopian Near Future UK where the wealthy hide themselves in an ...
Superman Returns
Film (2006). Warner Bros. Pictures. Directed by Bryan Singer. Written by Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris. Cast includes Kate Bosworth, James Marsden, Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey. 154 minutes. Colour. / Superman's return to cinema largely ignores developments in the comics; instead Superman Returns reverently emulates the original Superman (1978). Set after ...
King, Betty
(1948- ) US author known for Women of the Future: The Female Main Character in Science Fiction (1984), which assembles a detailed and apparently exhaustive list of Women in SF from 1818 onward. This begins with a general overview from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus (1818; rev 1831) to 1929 and continues with chapters ...
Sher, Antony
(1949- ) South African-born actor and author, mostly in UK from 1968; of his four novels, The Feast (1998) incorporates sf elements into a complexly Equipoisal narrative set in an unnamed Near Future African state after its brutal dictator has been deposed and (seemingly) killed. This profound disruption to the reality structure of the fragile state causes literal convulsions in the ...
Man of Steel
American film (2013). Warner Brothers/Legendary Pictures/Syncopy. Directed by Zack Snyder. Written by David S Goyer, based on a story by Goyer and Christopher Nolan using characters created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Cast includes Amy Adams, Henry Cavill, Kevin Costner, Russell Crowe, Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane, Michael Shannon, Antje Traue and Ayelet Zurer. 143 minutes. Colour. / In this version of the ...
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 ...