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Tuesday 15 September 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 14 September 2026
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SFinks
Polish Semiprozine – so described by its founder Wojtek Sedeńko – devoted to Fantastika; first published from Olsztyn in Autumn 1994. [See also Publishing history below.] Conceived as a Polish analogue of the trade journal Locus, this was initially a quarterly carrying nonfiction content such as bibliographic listings, publisher and author profiles, ...
Slavery
The unpleasant human institution of slavery is frequently extrapolated into spacegoing sf futures. One notable instance is Robert A Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy (September-December 1957 Astounding; 1957), which opens with the young protagonist being sold as a slave on a colony world whose Economics revolves around this practice, and closes with him – now free and in a position of ...
Spencer, G F
(? - ) UK author whose sf novel is Heavens for All (1944). [JC/DRL]
Rayner, Claire
(1931-2010) UK agony aunt – noted for her no-nonsense frankness and for the wide range of her compassion – campaigner for various causes, and author of several historical novels; she is of sf interest for The Meddlers (1970; vt The Baby Factory 1971), a Near Future tale tracing the life of the first Genetically Engineered test-tube baby, who is subsequently experimented upon by ...
Ford, Jeffrey
(1955- ) US teacher and author, most of whose work has been fantasy and horror (but see Horror in SF), though his intimately knowledgable and sophisticated use of the toolkits of Fantastika make it impossible to affix any dominant label to his oeuvre; his tales, mostly narrated by an immanent and sometimes visible Ford-like story-teller, permeate and are permeated by the conversant web (or mycelium) of the ...
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 ...