SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 9 August 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 3 August 2026
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Parsec
The official SI unit of astronomical distance; the name is a contraction of "parallax-second". The measure was introduced by UK astronomer Herbert Hall Towner (1861-1930). As the Earth travels from one side of the Sun to the other in half a year, parallax makes the position of any comparatively nearby star apparently shift. Using simple trigonometry, from the observed angular displacement of the star's measured position and knowledge of the distance between Earth and Sun the distance of the ...
Pacific Rim
American film (2013). Warner Brothers/Legendary Pictures. Directed by Guillermo Del Toro. Written by Travis Beacham and del Toro, based on a story by Beacham. Cast includes Charlie Day, Idris Elba, Burn Gorman, Charlie Hunnam, Robert Kazinsky, Rinko Kikuchi, Max Martini and Ron Perlman. 131 minutes. Colour. / As a prelude to their colonization of Earth, Aliens from another Dimension have ...
Heroes
Gilgamesh may be the first named hero in what we think of as the Western World. Like him, most heroes in the cultures of the West are passionate, often rebellious, defenders of and bringers of relief to their homelands, and until perhaps Boudicca (floruit 60-61 CE) always male. They often descended from Gods (see Gods and Demons) but are distinct from them, like Hercules; even Prometheus, the paradigm culture hero in the Western tradition, is not a ...
Beatty, Paul
(1962- ) US poet and author whose fictions comprise a deeply Satirical and hilarious anatomy of "Post-Racial America", a land where DWB (Driving While Black) is not a technical offense. The astronomically popular poet who narrates The White Boy Shuffle (1996) – his first collection, Watermelanin, has sold 126,000,000 copies – copes with an absurd but recognizable California (his ...
Preston, Peter
(1938-2018) UK journalist, editor and author, active in the UK newspaper world from 1959, most prominently as editor of the Guardian 1975-1995; he remained active in executive and other functions with the Guardian group of newspapers, and published actively until his death. Preston is of sf interest for two novels. 51st State (1998) is a Near Future Satire in which an increasingly dysfunctional Britain leaves ...
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 ...