Steven Dillon is an author and Professor of English at Bates College

Bates College

Bates College is a highly selective, private liberal arts college located in Lewiston, Maine, in the United States. and was most recently ranked 21st in the nation in the 2011 US News Best Liberal Arts Colleges rankings. The college was founded in 1855 by abolitionists...

 in Lewiston, Maine

Lewiston, Maine

Lewiston is a city in Androscoggin County in Maine, and the second-largest city in the state. The population was 41,592 at the 2010 census. It is one of two principal cities of and included within the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England city and town area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine...

. He is also a film critic and film historian. Dillon's use of the expression "The Solaris Effect", as in the title of his book, referred to the great influence of Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....

 and his films on other film and art. Dillon's use of Solaris

Solaris (1972 film)

Solaris is a 1972 film adaptation of the novel Solaris , directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. The film is a meditative psychological drama occurring mostly aboard a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris. The scientific mission has stalled, because the scientist crew have fallen to...

 refers to the 1972 film by Tarkovsky, only indirectly to the novel by Stanislaw Lem

Stanislaw Lem

Stanisław Lem was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. He was named a Knight of the Order of the White Eagle. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is perhaps best known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has...

.

Dillon's books include -

• The Solaris Effect: Art and Artifice in Contemporary American Film. University of Texas Press, Austin. 2006 ISBN 0292713444
• Derek Jarman and Lyric Film. University of Texas Press, Austin. 2004 ISBN 0292702248