SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 17 February 2026
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 16 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Punchatz, Don Ivan
(1936-2009) US designer, animator and illustrator who concentrated in the latter capacity on fantasy, though he executed numerous sf covers, sometimes signing his name Don-Ivan Punchatz or just Don Punchatz. His work appeared frequently in Slick magazines like Omni, Playboy and Rolling Stone, and for such publishers as Ace Books, Avon, Dell, ...
Nielsen Hayden, Patrick
(1959- ) US editor and anthologist, born Patrick James Hayden; he legally changed his name in 1979 when he married Teresa Nielsen Hayden. With his wife, he has been active in Fandom, producing the Fanzine Izzard from 1982 to 1987. He was editorially involved with Tor Books full-time from 1988 until his retirement in 2026, and in this ...
Sentinel Worlds
Videogame series (from 1988). Designed by Karl Buiter. / Sentinel Worlds is the name used by this encyclopedia to refer to a sequence of two Computer Role Playing Games set in similar, though probably not identical, Space Opera milieux. Both borrow design elements from Space Sims, as do several other contemporary games including ...
Williams, Heathcote
(1941-2017) UK poet, playwright, actor, political activist and author, initially notable in sf circles for his connections with the 1960s British New Wave, though he did not contribute material to its typical outlets; most of his work was, in fact, technically nonfantastic, though his plays – like his most famous, AC/DC (first performed Royal Court Theatre, London, 1970; in Gambit International Theatre Review, coll 1971) – were often ...
Forever Young
Film (1992). Warner Bros. Executive producers Edward S Feldman and Jeffrey Abrams, produced by Bruce Davey, directed by Steve Miner. Written by Abrams. Cast includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Mel Gibson, Isabel Glasser, George Wendt and Elijah Wood. 101 minutes. Colour. / In 1939, when his girlfriend (Glasser) lapses into apparently terminal coma after being hit by a car, grief-stricken test pilot McCormick (Gibson) volunteers for a one-year experiment in ...
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 ...