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Saturday 19 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.
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Williams, Tess
(1954-2025) UK-born teacher, editor and author, in Australia for many years, there receiving a degree in literature from Curtin University and an MA in creative writing from the University of Western Australia. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Padwan Affair" in She's Fantastical (anth 1995) edited by Judith Raphael Buckrich and Lucy Sussex. Of sf interest are two novels: Map of Power (1996), set mostly in a ...
Roguelike
Roguelikes or Rogue-likes are a type of Computer Role Playing Game or CRPG with a number of common gameplay features. The player must move their character, or party of characters through a dungeon or map with a series of levels, fighting Monsters of increasing difficulty. Most typically, the player is subject to "permadeath"; if a character or member of a party dies, then they are lost permanently. If all characters ...
Phillips, Roland Ashford
(1884-1969) US author, who worked under his own name and some unidentified pseudonyms; of sf interest is Golden Isle (1925), featuring a yacht which converts into a submarine (see Inventions), and which carries its owners to a Caribbean Island at the heart of which a Lost World is discovered. [JC]
Ultrawave
A once fairly common item of sf Terminology, denoting Imaginary Science radio-like Communications operating Faster Than Light. This sf coinage seems to have been first used in Lester del Rey's "Habit" (November 1939 Astounding); it appears in E E Smith's ...
Captain Science
US Comic (1950-1951). Seven issues. Youthful Magazines. Artists include Bill Molno, Harry Harrison, Joe Orlando, Gustav Schrotter and Wally Wood. Four strips per issue (two involving Captain Science) plus a two-page text story or article ("Can Science Make Gold?"). / In 1950, whilst on a geological field trip in New Mexico, physicist Gordon Dane and his young protege Rip Gary witness a ...
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 ...