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Wednesday 11 November 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 11 November 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Davidson, Steve
(1958-2026) US fan (active with letters published in SF Magazines as early as 1978), editor and publisher. In 2012 he acquired the then-moribund Amazing Stories (which see), reviving it first as a lively website with a news and reviews blog, then with ebook and webzine issues, and – with help from Kickstarter funding – as a print magazine from August 2018 (#614 dated Fall 2018) to Summer 2020 (#619) with Ira ...
Wizard of Mars, The
Film (1965; vt Horrors of the Red Planet). American General Pictures. Directed by David L Hewitt. Written by David L Hewitt, based on a story by Armando Busick and David L Hewitt inspired by the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L Frank Baum. Cast includes Eve Bernhardt, John Carradine, Roger Gentry, Vic McGee and Jerry Rannow. 85 minutes. / Four astronauts from Earth – Steve (Gentry), Doc (McGee), Charlie (Rannow), ...
Neason, Rebecca
(1954-2010) US author most of whose work was fantasy; of sf interest is Star Trek, the Next Generation #27: Guises of the Mind (1993), a competent Tie to the Star Trek universe, in the Star Trek, the Next Generation series, involving planetfall on a dangerously transformed world. [JC]
Tuckerisms
Item of fan Terminology usually denoting the Recursive-SF naming of fictional characters for members of the sf and fan community. The term derives from Wilson Tucker, who frequently "tuckerized" friends and whose Wild Talent (1954; exp 1955; vt The Man from Tomorrow 1955) is a classic – though far from the first – instance. Character surnames in this ...
Solomon, Rivers
(1988- ) US author, in UK from 2018, whose first novel, An Unkindness of Ghosts (2017), is set in a Generation Starship many years into its journey. The SF Megatext provides a generous range of likelihoods for this setting to illuminate, some of which Solomon duly invokes: the ritualized maintenance procedures designed to keep the ship and its inhabitants in order; the hierarchized ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...