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Wednesday 9 July 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.
Site updated on 7 July 2025
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Monomolecular Wire
An ultra-strong and ultra-thin monofilament occasionally found in sf and typically consisting of a single, very strongly bonded molecule, though other explanations may be given. Obvious real-world precursors are synthetic fibres such as nylon monofilament; the film The Man in the White Suit (1951) extrapolates from nylon to the nearly uncuttable monofilament used to make the dirt-proof and tear-proof garment of the title. In the same ...
Arabic SF
There are, of course, many fantastic motifs in medieval Arabic literature, as in the collection of stories of various genres Alf layla wa layla ["One Thousand and One Nights"] (standard text 15th century; trans by Sir Richard Burton as The Arabian Nights, 16vols 1885-1888). In this, the stories of the City of Brass and The Ebony Horse could be regarded as Proto SF. A few Utopias were written, too, including ...
Centaurworld
US animated online tv series (2021). Netflix. Created by Megan Nicole Dong. Directors include Jen Bennett, Christina Manrique, Jeremy Polgar and Katie Shanahan. Writers include Jen Bardekoff, Todd Casey, Amalia Levari and Minty Lewis. Voice cast includes Parvesh Cheena, Chris Diamantopoulos, Megan Nicole Dong, Kimiko Glenn, Megan Hilty, Brian d'Arcy James, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Jessie Mueller, Josh Radnor and Lea Salonga. Eighteen episodes of circa 26 minutes, except for one of ...
Smith, Howard S
(? - ) Canadian author whose sf novel, Howard S Smith's I, Robot (2008), while its author explicitly disavows any connection with any other story or film with the familiar title, does clearly depend on most of them in the Technothriller story of a twenty-first century Robot detective bound by the three ...
Singh, Nikhil
(? - ) South African artist, musician and author whose first novel, Taty Went West (2015), follows with considerable verve the adventures of a teenaged runaway into the Outzone of an Equipoisally-complex Near Future world, at some Post-Holocaust point where the leashes of consensual reality have been loosened;a Drug ...
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 ...