SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 12 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
Sponsor of the day: Ansible Editions
Dean, Howard
(1948- ) Zimbabwean expert in labour law and author who studied sociology at the University College of London (Rhodesia) [now University of Zimbabwe] and marketing and sales at London School of Commerce and Industry. He worked as training adviser to the Rhodesia and then Zimbabwe National Police Commissioners (1977-1984) and the consultant director for the Institute of Personnel Management in Harare (1986-2000). Co-wrote and published books on public speaking, aspects of ...
Neutron vs The Death Robots
Mexican film (1962; original title Los Autómatas de la Muerte; vt Neutron the Atomic Superman vs. the Death Robots). Estudios América, Producciones Corsa S.A. Directed by Federico Curiel. Written by Federico Curiel and Alfredo Ruanova. Cast includes Julio Aleman, Rosita Arenas, Wolf Ruvinskis and Jack Taylor. 80 minutes. Black and white. / The film opens with a television reporter helpfully recapping the events of the first ...
de Sorr, Angelo
Pseudonym of French author Ludovic Sclafer (1822-1881), whose Le Vampire (1852; trans Brian Stableford as The Vampires of London 2014) expressly shows the influence of John Polidori's The Vampyre (1819 chap) and of the various French versions and mutations of that focal tale. De Sorr uses the Vampire topos as a tool with which to skewer French ...
MacLaren, Bernard
(? - ) UK author whose sf novel Day of Misjudgment (1956) unusually represents the domination of society by Computers as more of a blessing than a curse, though the Walpurgisnacht setting of the tale may explain the reversal of values. [JC]
Grimwood, Jon Courtenay
Working name of Jonathan David Giles Courtenay Grimwood (1953- ), Malta-born author who has been peripatetic though he was educated and is now resident in the UK; he has also written nonfantastic literary fiction as Jonathan Grimwood, crime thrillers as Jack Grimwood, and has adopted Courtenay Grimwood rather than the original Grimwood as his surname for at least some official purposes. After several nonfiction books in the 1980s, beginning with ...
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 ...