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Thursday 24 April 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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Broderick, Damien
(1944-2025) Australian author, editor and critic; he had a PhD in the semiotics of fiction, science and sf with special reference to the work of Samuel R Delany. He edited four anthologies of Australian sf: The Zeitgeist Machine (anth 1977), Strange Attractors (anth 1985), Matilda at the Speed of Light (anth 1988) and Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (anth ...
Schwarz-Bart, André
(1928-2006) French author, married to Simone Schwarz-Bart; his parents were murdered by the Nazis in World War Two, and he subsequently joined the Resistance; his writing career was dominated by these experiences, his most famous novel being Le Dernier des Justes (1959; trans Stephen Becker as The Last of the Just 1960), a fantasy following over eight centuries the lives of the "Just Men" of ...
Gene Machine, The
Videogame (1996). Divide By Zero. Designed by Andy Blazdell. Platforms: DOS. / The Gene Machine is a Steampunk comedy, presented as a graphical Adventure with a strongly linear plot (see Interactive Narrative). The game begins when the player character, the pompous upper class adventurer Piers Featherstonehaugh, is approached by a talking ...
Rhinehart, Luke
Pseudonym of US teacher and author George Powers Cockcroft (1932-2020), best known for his Dice Man books, a sequence beginning with his first novel, The Dice Man (1971; rev 1983); publicity for the novel wrongly described its author as a psychiatrist. The tale, whose protagonist is named Luke Rhinehart, dramatizes a philosophy of chance – with life decisions made according to a throw of the dice – which, given dramatic fictional form, leads to what might ...
Videogame
Historically, games intended for use on personal computers, mainframes and minicomputers were often referred to as computer games, while their equivalents on home consoles and coin operated arcade cabinets have from their first appearance in the early 1970s been known as TV games or video games. This distinction, however, became increasingly blurred after the mid 1990s, as the same games were made available on both personal computers and consoles. Since the alternative designations occasionally ...
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 ...