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Friday 12 June 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 8 June 2026
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Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author, active from around 1950, several of whose books focused on London, including Capital (1975), a complex set of era-switching meditations – including a Neanderthal man's thoughts about the future – on the deep mythos of the city. The novel influenced Michael Moorcock's Mother London (1988) (as the author acknowledged clearly), and similar later works by Iain ...
Henley, Carra Depuy
(1869-1905) US author of A Man from Mars (1901 chap), in which a Utopia on Mars is described, in terms involving some mysticism and some cod science regarding levitation. [JC]
Wells, Hal K
(1899-1979) US author, in active service during World War One, who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Brass Key" in Weird Tales for February 1929. Much of his sf work – like Zehru of Xollar (February 1932 Astounding; 2008 ebook) – was Space Opera for Pulp journals, with a tendency to the lurid. Some of his ...
Paranoia [game]
Role Playing Game (1984). West End Games (WEG). Designed by Greg Costikyan, Daniel Gelber, Ken Rolston, Eric Goldberg. / Playing Paranoia is an exercise in perversity and frustration, where the watchwords are "fear, ignorance and suspicion". The setting is a Post-Holocaust Underground City ruled by a ...
Up
Animated film (2009). Pixar/Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Pete Docter. Written by Bob Peterson and Docter, based on a story by Docter, Peterson and Thomas McCarthy. Cast includes Edward Asner, Jordan Nagai and Christopher Plummer. 93 minutes. Colour. / A Lost World adventure with Steampunk flourishes, Up is most notable for containing two of the most effective tear-jerking scenes in cinema history. The first ...
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 ...