SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 22 April 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 21 April 2025
Sponsor of the day: Joe Haldeman
Broderick, Damien
(1944-2025) Australian author, editor and critic; he had a PhD in the semiotics of fiction, science and sf with special reference to the work of Samuel R Delany. He edited four anthologies of Australian sf: The Zeitgeist Machine (anth 1977), Strange Attractors (anth 1985), Matilda at the Speed of Light (anth 1988) and Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (anth ...
Wintle, Harold
(1870-1941) UK journalist and author whose The Cleansing of the "Lords" (1906) verges non-mimetic Politics in its depiction of the British government's apparent involvement in an ivory trade trust; Until That Day (1912) suggests that a dysfunctional Near Future Britain might return to sanity with the restoration of the monarchy; The Masked Battery (1927) is a fantasy about a magic spring ...
Hidden, The
Film (1988). New Line-Heron Joint Venture/Third Elm Street Venture. Directed by Jack Sholder. Written by Bob Hunt. Cast includes William Boyett, Kyle MacLachlan and Michael Nouri. 97 minutes. Colour. / A quiet stockbroker goes on a spree in Los Angeles (see California), robbing a bank, and after his arrest beginning to kill people. We learn his body is temporarily occupied by a homicidal slug-like Alien, which moves from body ...
Williams, Phillip B
(1986- ) US teacher, poet and author whose first novel Ours (2024) takes place mostly in the eponymous quasi-magical Polder (see Utopia; Zone), founded in the 1830s near St Louis, Missouri, initially as a refuge for freed or escaped slaves (see Race in SF). Enemies attempting to reach Ours find themselves disoriented in the surrounding forest [for Into the Woods here and ...
Sterling, Brett
A House Name of Better Publications, used originally in the magazines Startling Stories and Captain Future for five short Captain Future novels, three of which – "The Star of Dread" (Captain Future 1943), "Magic Moon" (Captain Future 1944) and "Red Sun of Danger" ( ...
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 ...