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Wednesday 11 March 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 9 March 2026
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de Rouen, Reed R
(1917-1986) US actor, television scriptwriter and author, of half Native American (Oneida) extraction. He appeared in minor roles in various television series, including a 1966 Doctor Who episode, "A Holiday for the Doctor"; he scripted a 1963 episode of the Avengers, "Six Hands Across a Table"; his sf novel Split Image (1955) mixes Space Opera and speculation on Politics and ...
Barton, Samuel
(1839-1895) US author who worked as a broker and also published under the pseudonym A B Roker. His sf novel, The Battle of the Swash and the Capture of Canada (1888), thought by Thomas D Clareson to be the first American Future War tale, was written to show the defencelessness of the US coasts as the USA and UK come to blows, a conflict eventually won by the US through the invention of self-destructing torpedo ...
Space and Time
US low-paying Semiprozine that began as an Amateur Magazine and is now the longest continuously published non-professional SF Magazine. Published and edited by Gordon Linzner, New York, from Spring 1966, with the assistance of Nestor Jaremko and others for the first few issues, and with Jani Anderson as co-editor from #75 (Winter 1989) to #80 (Summer 1992). Linzner passed it on to Hildy ...
Abrams, J J
(1966- ) US creator of Cinema productions and Television series, including works of major genre interest in both categories. In a precocious debut at age 15 he wrote the music for the Horror in SF film Nightbeast (1982) directed by Don Dohler (see The Alien Factor). Early sf work as screenwriter includes the movies ...
Carpenter, John
(1948- ) US film-maker. At USC Film School Carpenter collaborated with writer-actor-director Dan O'Bannon on Dark Star (1974), a student effort expanded successfully into a feature that attracted attention for its Absurdist humour and classical suspense, following the adventures of a Spaceship crewed by near-insane astronauts and dangerously unstable sentient bombs. That ...
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 ...