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Saturday 6 December 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 1 December 2025
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Litmus
UK space-rock band, whose only release to date, You Are Here (2004) styles its title and cover-art in homage to Douglas Adams's Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Musically the band is very reminiscent of Hawkwind's expansive and more cosmically evocative style. [AR]
Weintraub, William
(1926-2017) Canadian journalist, filmmaker and author, active from the 1950s; he is of sf interest for The Underdogs (1979), a Near Future Satire on Canadian politics where an independent socialist Quebec nearing bankruptcy (see Politics) oppresses its English minority; the play version of this tale, The Underdogs: A Play (1998), was never produced. [JC]
Trías, Fernanda
(1976- ) Uruguayan translator and author (see Latin America) whose first novel, La Azotea (2001; trans Annie McDermott as The Rooftop 2021), though not literally fantastic, presses the water margins of Fantastika through its depiction of an imposed, incestuous isolation (see Prison) on its protagonist, seemingly more intense than humanly bearable. Of ...
Ng Yi-Sheng
(1980- ) Singapore poet, playwright and author, initially recognized for his poetry, of which there are several collections, beginning with last boy (coll 2006); his Anthologies tend to focus, as does his poetry, on gay issues and experiences. He is perhaps best known internationally for his short fiction, beginning with "Agnes Joaquim, Bioterrorist" in Fish Eats Lion: New Singaporean Speculative Fiction (anth ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...