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Tuesday 13 October 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 12 October 2026
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Edwards, Malcolm
(1949-2026) UK editor, critic and publisher, educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in anthropology. Active in UK sf Fandom in the 1970s and early 1980s, he published the first complete text of James Blish's "The Science in Science Fiction" (May 1951-May 1952 Science Fiction Quarterly) in his Fanzine Quicksilver #2 in 1971; edited the ...
Shoreline of Infinity
Scottish semi-professional magazine available in both ebook and print form, published by The New Curiosity Shop, Edinburgh, and edited by Noel Chidwick. Its first two issues were Summer and Winter 2015 but thereafter was quarterly, missing the Winter issues in 2018 and 2019 and the autumn 2020 issue. There were two special issues: #8½ (July 2017) printed for the Edinburgh International Book Festival and #11½ (April 2018) for the Edinburgh International Science Festival. / The ...
Super-Pets
Since humans have long enjoyed close companionships with animals – mostly Cats and Dogs, though many other animals have functioned as pets – it was probably inevitable that Superheroes would be accompanied by supportive animals sometimes sharing their amazing abilities. Several of these were introduced in the 1950s and 1960s, though none achieved great popularity; as ...
Love
Film (2011). High Fliers. Written and directed by William Eubank. Cast includes Bradley Horne, Corey Richardson and Gunner Wright. 80 minutes. Colour. / In 2039 a lone astronaut is posted to the International Space Station after two decades' abandonment, but loses contact with Earth; in the years of isolation that follow he discovers the journal of a Civil War soldier recounting the 1864 discovery of a mysterious artefact in Arizona, which ...
Feghoots
Item of sf Terminology denoting a brief, joky fictional anecdote or vignette which builds towards, and whose entire impact depends on, some more or less ludicrous punchline in the form of a pun or spoonerism; occasionally the effect is of deliberate anticlimax, as in the shaggy-dog story (see Flash Fiction; Humour). The name derives from Reginald Bretnor's sequence ...
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 ...