SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 19 January 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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.
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Lynch, David
(1946-2025) US actor, artist and musician and primarily filmmaker whose work extended Surrealism into mainstream Cinema and Television. Lynch's films tend to examine the uneasy truce between rationality and the unconscious mind by revealing how intimations of Sex, Identity and death make themselves felt in modern American communities. The term Lynchian was defined by David Foster ...
Elson, Robert
(? - ) UK author whose only work of sf interest is "Quack!": The Portrait of an Experimentalist (1924), in which a doctor discovers that a substance in vitamin B hugely increases muscular strength and resistance to disease (see Immortality; Superman). [JC]
Muir, Edwin
(1887-1959) Scottish poet, translator and author, prevented by ill health from active service in World War One, though his early poetry reflects upon the consequences of that disaster for the world. He is best known for the translations with his wife Willa Muir of very nearly the entire works of Franz Kafka, introducing that central figure to the English-language world. It has been suggested that ...
Woods, Olivia
(? - ) South-African-born author, in the USA for some years; she is of sf interest for two Ties to the Star Trek universe: Fearful Symmetry (2008) and The Soul Key (2009), both in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Relaunch series. [JC]
Don't Look Up
Film (2021) Hyperobject Industries, Province of British Columbia Production Services Tax Credit, Bluegrass Films. Directed by Adam McKay. Written by McKay from a story by David Sirota. Cast includes Cate Blanchett, Timothée Chalamet, Kid Cudi, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ariana Grande, Paul Guilfoyle, Jonah Hill, Robert Joy, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Ron Perlman, Tyler Perry, Mark Rylance and Meryl Streep. 138 minutes. Colour. / Don't Look Up was released in December 2021. ...
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 ...