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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 ...
Runaway
Film (1984). Tri-Star/Delphi III. Directed by Michael Crichton. Written by Crichton. Cast includes Kirstie Alley, Cynthia Rhodes, Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons. 97 minutes. Colour. / Crichton again exercises his love/hate relationship with Machines in this predictable but exciting thriller about the policeman Sergeant Jack R Ramsay (Selleck), partnered with Karen Thompson (Rhodes) whose job it is to deal with defective ...
Writers of the Future Contest
This contest, originally sponsored by L Ron Hubbard and later, after his death, by Bridge Publications and subsequently Galaxy Press in the USA, is between short stories or novelettes of sf or fantasy submitted by novice authors who have previously published no more than three short stories or one novelette. Contests have been held quarterly since 1984; the three place-getters receive cash awards as well as publication in the ...
Reizenstein, Ludwig von
(1826-1885) German lepidopterist, surveyor and author, in US from 1848, settling in the turbulent milieu of antebellum New Orleans, which is the venue for his first novel, Die Geheimnisse von New-Orleans (1854-1855 Louisiana Staats-Zeitung; slightly rev 1854-1855; trans Steven Rowan as The Mysteries of New Orleans 2002). The novel creates a model for the hauntedness of Louisiana as born deep in the abysmal past of the region, in this case the emergence in ...
North, David
(? - ) US or Canadian author of whom nothing is known – whose Time Warriors sequence of Military SF adventures, beginning with Time Warriors #1: Fuse Point (1991), sends its protagonists, a Vietnam vet and his barbarian sidekick named Brom, via Time Travel into various conflicts and Parallel Worlds, where they act, with ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...