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Friday 10 July 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 7 July 2026
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Dianetics
According to its adherents a science, according to its disbelievers a Pseudoscience, founded by L Ron Hubbard, at the time a pulp writer whose main market was the sf magazines. Hubbard's sf had always emphasized the powers of the mind and deployed protagonists who maintained to the end a heroic stance against a corrupt Universe. The former interest was translated into real-life terms in the late 1940s, and the latter vision ...
Laßwitz, Kurd
(1848-1910) German Kantean philosopher, historian of science, author and short-story author; the German form of his surname, Laßwitz, is usually rendered in English as Lasswitz. He began to publish work of interest with "Bis zum Nullpunkt des Seins" ["To the Zero Point of Existence"] (21-24 May 1871 Schlesische Zeitung); along with a second sf novella, this depiction of life in 2371 was assembled as ...
Mōretsu Pirates
["Mōretsu Pirates", with "Pirates" as the sanctioned pronunciation for characters that would otherwise be pronounced Uchū Kaizoku, literally "Vehement Space Pirates"]. Japanese animated tv series (2012; released in English as Bodacious Space Pirates). Satelight, Tokyo MX. Cast includes Kana Hanazawa, Mikako Komatsu and Masaya Matsukaze. Directed by Tatsuo Sato. Written by Tatsuo Sato, Michiko Ito, Shinichi Miyazaki, Kentaro Mizuno. 26 25-minute episodes. Colour. / In ...
Wakefield, Tom
(1935-1996) UK teacher and author, who wrote nonfiction about his teaching experiences at special schools in Hackney (an East London borough); his only novel of sf interest, The Love Siege (1979), also reflects his pedagogical experiences through its depiction of a Dystopian Near Future London where all "handicapped" children are condemned to extermination. The staff of the school revolts. ...
Schroeder, Andreas
(1946- ) German-born poet, broadcaster and author, in Canada from 1951; much of his work skirts various regions of Fantastika, including the fabulistic tales and parables assembled in The Late Man (coll 1972), his first volume of fiction, some of which are sf, and the more organized of which convey some of the surreal fixity of gaze of Franz Kafka. The protagonist of Dustship Glory ...
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 ...