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Wednesday 9 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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Zagreb Film
Zagreb Film was founded in the then Yugoslavia, now Croatia, in 1953. Though it produced many live-action documentaries and feature films, it is mainly known for its stylized animated work, which has been internationally influential, labelled the "Zagreb school of animation" by the French film critic Georges Sadoul. The best known of the Zagreb directors, Dušan Vukotić, referred to a ...
Reeve, Philip
(1966- ) UK illustrator from 1996, mostly of picture books for younger readers, and author of Young Adult fiction, most prominently to date the Mortal Engines series, the main sequence of which, the Hungry Cities Chronicles, comprises Mortal Engines (2001), Predator's Gold (2003), Infernal Devices (2005) and A Darkling Plain (2006). The tightly composed series is set in ...
Pachter, Josh
(1951- ) US author, chiefly of short crime fiction, translator and editor. Of genre interest are his two reprint Anthologies of the included authors' favourite tales: Top Science Fiction: The Authors' Choice, Selected and Introduced by the Authors Themselves (anth 1984) and Top Fantasy: The Authors' Choice, Selected and Introduced by the Authors Themselves (anth 1985). The selections are mostly well known; the ...
Gunnarsson, Thorarinn
Pseudonym of an unidentified US or Canadian author (?1957- ) who has published mostly Fantasy like Song of the Dwarves (1988) and its sequel Revenge of the Valkyrie (1989), but began his career with the first volume of the Starwolves sequence – comprising The Starwolves (1988), Starwolves: Battle of the Ring (1989), Starwolves: Tactical Error (1991) and ...
Humour
There is a false belief that sf and humour do not mix. Certainly sf has produced many bad jokes – Arthur C Clarke's Tales From the White Hart (coll of linked stories 1957) is entirely devoted to them – but from the beginning it has also produced many good ones. Much sf humour takes the form of social Satire, and stories of this kind are discussed mainly in that entry. While the discussion below naturally ...
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 ...