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Sunday 8 March 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 2 March 2026
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Grant, Rob
(1955-2026) UK author, initially best known under the collaborative pseudonym Grant Naylor for his work on the Red Dwarf (1988-current) Television series (which see for discussion). Only one related novel, Grant's solo Backwards (1996), has not been published under this name; as the title suggests, the central sf theme in Backwards is that of ...
Green, Joseph
(1931-2026) US author of sf and technical journalism who also worked for NASA, and who began publishing sf with "The Engineer" in New Worlds for February 1962. An Affair with Genius (coll 1969) assembles some of his better early work. Since 1989 he also published short fiction in Analog, F&SF and other magazines as by Francis Marion Soty. Although many of his 70-plus stories (not all sf) have ...
Simmons, Dan
(1948-2026) US elementary school teacher circa 1971-1987 and author, who began publishing work of genre interest with "The River Styx Runs Upstream" in Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine for April 1982, and who was for some time thought of primarily as an author of tales of Horror, some of which – along with sf and Fantasy stories – were assembled ...
Architectural Metaphor
US space-rock band, formed in the Boston area in Summer 1984, whose pretentious name well suits the ramblingly overweening sf stylings of their albums. On Studio Galacti (1994) and Creature of the Velvet Void (1997) swirling synthesizers and elaborately played guitars do little to enliven various Pulpish Genre SF Clichés. [AR] see also: ...
28 Days Later
1. Film (2002). DNA Films/British Film Council. Directed by Danny Boyle. Written by Alex Garland. Cast includes Megan Burns, Christopher Eccleston, Brendan Gleason, Naomie Harris, Noah Huntley, Stuart McQuarrie and Cillian Murphy. 113 minutes. Colour. / Prologue. Animal rights activists break into the Cambridge Primate Research Centre where they let loose a number of chimpanzees infected with a rage-inducing virus. Like Ebola, this transmits ...
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 ...