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Monday 13 April 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 13 April 2026
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Friedman, Michael Jan
(1955- ) US author, mostly notably of Ties to Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation and other Star Trek spinoffs, including the My Brother's Keeper trilogy comprising Star Trek: My Brother's Keeper: Constitution (1998), Star Trek: My Brother's Keeper: Republic (1998), Star Trek: My Brother's Keeper: Enterprise ...
Findley, Timothy
(1930-2002) Canadian actor from 1953 and author who began to publish fiction with the nonfantastic "About Effie" for The Tamarack Review, Autumn 1956, and who remained moderately prolific through his substantial career; though much of his work seems at first glance to be fantasy, it escapes any straightforward definition as such, as his Equipoisal fluctuations between Mythology and "reality" generate a sense that the venues he ...
Sparhawk, Bud
Working name of US author John C Sparhawk (1937- ), who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Tomkins Battery Case" in Analog for August 1976, his best known short work being the Sam Boone sequence of tales beginning with "Sam Boone and the Thermal Couple" (October 1995 Analog), about a helterskelter but competent human who deals with visiting Aliens from various parts of ...
Timerider: The Adventures of Lyle Swann
Film (1983). Zoomo Productions/Jensen Farley Pictures. Directed by William Dear. Written by Dear, Michael Nesmith. Cast includes Belinda Bauer, Peter Coyote, L Q Jones, Ed Lauter and Fred Ward. 92 minutes. Colour. / This Time-Travel Western prefigures the more successful Back to the Future Part III (1989) in its juxtaposition of twentieth-century technology and the generic conventions associated ...
Tangent, Patrick Quinn
Pseudonym of US author George Hamilton Phelps (1854-? ) US author of The New Columbia; Or, the Re-United States (1909) as by P Q Tangent, a somewhat coercive Utopia set in a Near Future where an Invasion of Canada has caused it to be forcibly "re-united" into America, fulfilling the Manifest Destiny of its new owners; dissidents are deported; and a socialist ...
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 ...