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Saturday 15 August 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 10 August 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
Bigfoot
Film (1970; vt Big Foot). Ellman Film Enterprises. Produced by Anthony Cardoza. Directed by Robert F Slatzer. Written by Slatzer from an original story by Slatzer and James Gordon White. Cast includes John Carradine, Lindsay Crosby, Judy Jordan, Joi Lansing, Christopher Mitchum and John Mitchum. 84 minutes. Colour. / Near a small town in northern California, Rick (Christopher Mitchum) and his girlfriend Chris (Jordan) briefly encounter a ...
Conquest, Joan
(1883-1941) Pseudonym of UK author Mary Eliza Louise Cooke (Mrs Leonard Cooke), born Mary Eliza Gripper and also known as Sister Martin-Nicholson following her first, brief marriage in 1907 to Allen Martin Reuben Nicholson (1883-1915); she married Leonard Cooke in 1915. She is known for floridly euphemistic (though superficially daring) novels of high romance, typical of which are Leonie of the Jungle (1921), whose eponymous heroine escapes the ...
Quantum Computers
A still largely theoretical but eagerly researched breed of Computers which use quantum superposition to deal simultaneously with all possible values which can be represented as "qubits" (quantum bits, as opposed to conventional computer bits representing 0 or 1) in a quantum register. Experimental devices with small numbers of qubits have been tested; if workable on a larger scale, the technology should be capable of processing speeds vastly greater than normal ...
Matthews, Rodney
(1945- ) British illustrator. After he studied at the West of England College of Art from 1961 to 1962, Matthews initially worked in advertising, while also drumming for the rock group Squidd. In 1970, he left advertising to focus on doing art for album covers, which has remained one of his primary avocations; perhaps his best known effort in this area is his cover for Nazareth's No Mean City (1979), depicting a menacing humanoid monster on a barren ...
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 ...