SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 13 January 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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Oceans of the Mind
US Online Magazine except for the first issue which was distributed as a Print Magazine in limited numbers. Published by Trantor Publications, Jacksonville, Florida and edited by Richard Freeborn, it ran for 19 quarterly issues, Fall 2001 to Spring 2006. Each issue had a theme for its stories and essays. The first issue's was Robots and alongside representative reprints by Isaac ...
Leichter, Hilary
(1985- ) US author whose first novel, Temporary (2020), edges into the water margins of Fantastika through its protagonist's surreally transformative search for what, in the third decade of the twenty-first century, she calls "steadiness". Her experiences – for instance as a "human barnacle" – may be read metaphorically, though they are far more illuminating if taken as literal; under the latter strategy, ...
Jack Gaughan Award
In full, the Jack Gaughan Award for Best Emerging Artist. Named in honour of artist Jack Gaughan and often referred to simply as the Gaughan Award, this is presented annually by NESFA, the New England Science Fiction Association, to an artist who has achieved professional status within the past five years. The winner is selected by a panel of judges. In practice, the qualification "within the past five years" seems to be applied fairly elastically; Richard ...
Muse
UK rock band, formed in Devon by frontman Matthew Bellamy (1978- ). The group favours a bombastic and indeed deliberately melodramatic musical style, guitar-based but augmented with many other instruments, amplified and overdriven to sometimes preposterous levels. The group's songs, often science-fictional, are conveyed in Bellamy's distinctive voice, stronger at the top-end and with a wailing falsetto. This is a musical mixture that works well with grandiose or ...
Sawyer, Andy
(1952- ) UK librarian, critic, academic, also involved in Fandom. He edited the British Science Fiction Association's Matrix 1977-1978 and the BSFA's review journal Paperback Inferno 1985-1992. During this period he contributed to Fanzines and reference books such as The Science Fiction Sourcebook (anth 1984) edited by David ...
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 ...