SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 4 December 2024
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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d20
Role Playing Game (2000). Wizards of the Coast (WOTC). Designed by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams. / d20 is a generic system for running any type of RPG, with a unified mechanic for performing most actions using a twenty-sided polyhedral die (a "d20"). The original rules were derived from the third edition of the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy game, the rights to which were acquired ...
Walters, Guy
(1971- ) UK historian and author, much of whose work has focused on the years leading up to World War Two and on the war itself. Of sf interest is The Leader (2003), a Hitler Wins tale set in an early 1940s Britain ruled by Oswald Mosley (1896-1980); justice triumphs in the end. Similar scenarios were examined with somewhat greater care in Jo Walton's ...
Lodwick, John
(1916-1959) UK author whose highly competent novels tend to insert somewhat depressive adventurers into a greyed post-World War Two world; of sf interest is Peal of Ordnance (1947), set in Near Future and featuring a distressed soldier who, after being demobbed, blows up the War Office and the Albert Memorial. [JC]
SF [alphabetization]
Titles of organizations, magazines, etc., which begin "SF", meaning "science fiction", are listed as if that phrase were spelt out in full. [JC/PN]
Vallance, Karl
Pseudonym of the unidentified UK author (? - ) of Global Blackout (1954), a Near Future Disaster tale in which the world is suddenly blacked out. The cause is unknown. The protagonists of the tale survive social breakdown. [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 ...