Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (English: Encyclopaedia or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Crafts) was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It was edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert. As of 1750, the full title was Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une société de gens de lettres, mis en ordre par M. Diderot de l'Académie des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Prusse, et quant à la partie mathématique, par M. d'Alembert de l'Académie royale des Sciences de Paris, de celle de Prusse et de la Société royale de Londres. (Encyclopedia: or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts, by a Company of Men of Letters, arranged by M. Diderot of the Academy of Sciences and Belles-lettres of Prussia: as to the Mathematical Portion, arranged by M. d'Alembert of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, to the Academy of Sciences in Prussia and to the Royal Society of London.) The title page was amended as D'Alembert acquired more titles.

Bernard Werber (born 18 September 1961 in Toulouse) is a French science fiction writer active since the 1990s.

His style of writing mixes different literary genres, notably the saga, the science fiction of the inter-war years, and tracts of philosophy.

In most of his novels, Bernard Werber uses the same form of construction, alternating informative articles in the style of an encyclopaedia and normal prose. The articles define or enlarge upon the ideas in the main text.

Also there are connections between his novels. One finds characters like Edmond Wells both in the trilogy Les Fourmis (The Ants) and in the L'Empire des anges (The Empire of the Angels). Also there are recurrent themes like l'Arbre des Possibles (The Tree of Possibilities) of Isidore Katzenberg, or even the novel Nous les dieux, which treats the ideas first presented in the short story L’École des jeunes dieux (The School of the Young Gods).

In the eight novels, Werber describes various authors. We are presented with an author who, at the end of his life, writes a last book which makes sense of his previous work. Thus in having a certain similarity of characters, themes and styles, one can conclude that he is trying to give a certain coherence to the ideas that he is developing.