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Sunday 22 June 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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Forsyth, Frederick
(1938-2025) UK author who gained fame with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), and whose books are generally political thrillers. The Shepherd (1975 chap), however, is a sentimental Timeslip or ghost fantasy in which a pilot on Christmas Eve 1957 is saved from crashing by a World War Two pilot in an antique bomber: pilot and plane had been shot down on the Christmas Eve of 1943. ...
Psi Powers
A name given to the full spectrum of mental powers studied by the Pseudoscience of parapsychology, and a common item of sf Terminology. In his book From Anecdote to Experiment in Psychical Research (1972), Robert Thouless claims that he and Dr B P Wiesner invented the term, prior to its use in sf circles, as being less liable to suggest a pre-existing theory than the term "Extra Sensory Perception" (or ...
Assollant, Alfred
(1827-1886) French author whose strong republican views affected his career, sometimes damagingly, and which permeate his work as a whole, giving a mildly transgressive tone to the two tales so far translated into English. Histoire fantastique du célébre Pierrot (1860; trans A G Munro as The Fantastic History of the Celebrated Pierrot 1875) [for subtitles see Checklist below] is a spoofish Tall Tale recounting the triumphant ...
Newszines
Fan Language abbreviation for a Fanzine or Magazine primarily devoted to sf news and perhaps gossip; most also feature at least some book listings and/or reviews. Newszines with entries in this encyclopedia are: Ansible, British Fantasy Society Bulletin, Checkpoint, ...
Dalton, Moray
Pseudonym of UK author Katharine Renoir (1881-1963). Of her 30 or so adventure thrillers, one is clearly sf: in The Black Death (1934), after a devastating Disaster, a group of men and women awake into a Ruined Earth dominated by a world state. She is not to be confused with Arthur Laxton Haynes (1883-? ), who wrote a book of verse [title not known] in 1915 as Moray Dalton. [SH/JC]
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 ...