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Sunday 7 December 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 1 December 2025
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Equipoise
1. In this encyclopedia Equipoise designates the active and conscious mixing or two or more genres within a single narrative, usually within a single narrative event rather than sequentially, in order to provide a multifaceted narrative take on action, character, motif, setting. The primary effect is sometimes aesthetic pleasure. But perhaps more interestingly, an Equipoisal narrative may reveal a world richer and ultimately more graspable than a world envisioned through a single lens. ...
Levene, Malcolm
(1937-1973) UK author, in Australia from the 1960s, whose Carder's Paradise (1968) describes the mixed blessings of Automation: a completely automated society whose inhabitants are kept busy by complex entertainments. [JC]
Callin, Grant
(1941- ) US soldier, research analyst for NASA, and author who has also written as by Flash Richardson; he began to publish work of genre interest with "Analog" in Analog for August 1971. In his Hard SF Saturnalia sequence comprising Saturnalia (1986) and A Lion on Tharthee (1987), which is partially set in a Space Habitat, an odd-couple pair of protagonists becomes ...
Stavridis, Admiral James
(1955- ) US soldier (Supreme Allied Commander Europe 2009-2013) and author, whose Near Future Next World War sequence, beginning with 2034: A Novel of the Next World War (2021) with Elliot Ackerman, complexly narrates a naval War between America and China. The sequel, 2054 (2024) with Elliot Ackerman [who see ...
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 ...