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Friday 11 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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Microsoft Space Simulator
Videogame (1994). Bruce Artwick Organization (BAO). Designed by Charles Guy. Platforms: DOS. / Microsoft Space Simulator is a Toy Game which simulates historical and technologically extrapolated forms of space exploration, much influenced by the developers' line of flight simulators beginning with Flight Simulator (1979 subLOGIC, AppleII; 1980 TRS80) designed by Bruce Artwick and continuing as the ...
Boitard, Pierre
(1787-1859) French botanist, geologist and author, whose two works of sf interest are composed for young readers; each title appeared separately in 1830s journals, and was subsequently assembled in revised form in Paris avant les hommes (coll 1861; trans Brian Stableford as Journey to the Sun 2016). The framing narrative, in which a demon conducts a human interlocutor on a guided tour of regions of interest, is shared. "Etudes ...
Clock, Herbert
(1890-1979) US businessman and author, in active service during World War One, apparently senior collaborator with the lawyer Eric Boetzel (1884-1958), whose role was to cut the manuscript in half, on The Light in the Sky (1929), an sf tale set in the Underground Lost World of Atzlan, extending from Mexico into the Gulf of Mexico. Aztecs had retreated here after the genocidal ...
Perry, Roger
Pseudonym of UK author Roger William Cowern (1928- ), author of three undemanding Space Operas for Robert Hale Limited: Senior Citizen (1979), The Making of Jason (1980) and Esper's War (1981). [JC]
Slow Glass
A glass-like substance based on Imaginary Science, which in effect has a refractive index so huge that light takes significant time – from seconds to many years – to pass through a sheet or block of the material. It thus functions as a limited Time Viewer. Bob Shaw coined the term in his fine story "Light of Other Days" (August 1966 Analog), where slow-glass ...
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 ...