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Sunday 12 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.
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Medieval Futurism
Term coined by John Carnell in his introduction to New Writings in SF 12 (anth 1967) to describe a contemporary trend of sf containing "Future technologies, often on other planets, but with heavy overtones of the Middle Ages feudal systems as the governing bodies." (see History in SF) Examples cited by Carnell include L Sprague de Camp's Divide and Rule (April-May 1939 ...
Farmer, Geoffrey Norton
(1881-1937) Welsh author of whom little is known beyond Quella (1914), an sf tale featuring a Mad Scientist whose plot to Drug humanity into submitting to his rule comes to grief when those he has addicted run riot after supplies have been interrupted. [JC]
Kipple
Term originating in Fandom, denoting useless or unwanted household junk and ephemera which seems to reproduce itself at the expense of non-kipple possessions – a low-key, domestic manifestation of Entropy (which see). The word spread from Fan Language into popular culture via the novels of Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) ...
Dake, Charles Romeyn
(1849-1899) US homeopathic doctor, editor and author who began to publish work of genre interest with his first venture into fiction, "The Limits of Imagination" (December 1892 Homeopathic News); his only other short story, also fantastically themed, is "The Death and Regeneration of Gerald Deane" (May 1893 Homeopathic News). His competent Lost-Race novel, A Strange Discovery (1899), is a ...
Jaeger, Muriel
(1892-1969) UK author who took an English degree at Oxford and was a member there of a group of women writers, including Dorothy L Sayers (1893-1957), which called itself the Mutual Admiration Society. Her first sf work, The Question Mark (1926), depicts a Utopian UK of 200 years hence – as witnessed by the protagonist, who has been roused from a cataleptic trance (see Sleeper Awakes) – is a ...
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 ...