SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 23 June 2025
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.
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Forsyth, Frederick
(1938-2025) UK author who gained fame with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), and whose books are generally political thrillers. The Shepherd (1975 chap), however, is a sentimental Timeslip or ghost fantasy in which a pilot on Christmas Eve 1957 is saved from crashing by a World War Two pilot in an antique bomber: pilot and plane had been shot down on the Christmas Eve of 1943. ...
Giraud, Jean
(1938-2012) French artist, best known by his pseudonym Moebius, who also drew as Gir and for a period lived in the United States. Staggeringly prolific and remarkably inventive, Giraud was long considered one of Europe's major talents, and his loose, eloquent line style influenced an entire generation of fantasy and sf artists. Born near Paris, he displayed from childhood a love of illustration; his early influences were classic American Comic strips and the ...
Punch Punch Forever
Irish/Japanese online animated series (2023-current). Created, directed and written by Speedoru. Voice cast includes Chihaya Hanai, KL, Hinako Mori, Emi Miyajima and Akari Una. Two episodes to date, 8-12 minutes. Colour. / Earth's northern hemisphere is now red and seemingly molten, whilst the southern is blue, likely ocean; an orbital ring circles the equator, but has fragmented along one stretch. This is due to our planet's collision 200 years ago with the ...
Mignogna, Adeena
(? - ) US software engineer and author whose Robot Galaxy Space Opera sequence, beginning with Crazy Foolish Robots (2021), exposes its human protagonist to a planet inhabited by Robots threatened by their own literal programming and inimical forces from without. As a programmer herself, she reluctantly becomes involved in helping them survive. There are comic elements (see ...
Esenwein, J Berg
(1867-1946) US author of (chiefly) how-to-write books, and editor of the usually accepted candidate for the first exclusively science-fictional Anthology, which was also sf's first Original Anthology: Adventures to Come (anth 1937). Despite this primacy, its actual impact on the genre was nil. It has been suggested that the eight contributors – none of whom appears to have published anything else ...
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 ...