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Saturday 12 July 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.
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Eugenics
Term denoting the modification and concentration of supposedly desirable human traits, and elimination of supposedly undesirable ones, by selective breeding programmes and/or the sterilization of the "unfit", a category from the outset almost invariably restricted to lower class men and women, the mentally ill (arbitrarily defined), "habitual" criminals, and non-whites. Inhabitants of and migrants from various late nineteenth-century European empires were also excluded from the ranks of the ...
Carruth, Hayden
(1862-1932) US author and literary editor of The Women's Home Companion; The Adventures of Jones (coll of linked stories 1895), in which Jones tell his audience various tall tales, some of them sf, some of them about his own Inventions; during the course of these narratives, much contemporary sf – including the fading vogue for the extraordinary voyage (see Fantastic Voyages) is spoofed. [JC]
Sinclair, Upton
(1878-1968) US playwright and author known primarily for his work outside the sf field, particularly for his "muckraker" novels of social criticism, including The Jungle (25 February-4 November 1905 Appeal to Reason; rev 1906) and Oil! (1927), the latter filmed as There Will be Blood (2007); and for The Gnomobile: A Gnice Gnew Gnarrative with Gnonsense, but Gnothing Gnaughty (1936), a juvenile fantasy which was filmed by Disney as ...
Panshin, Cory
(1947- ) US author and critic, collaborator with her husband, Alexei Panshin (whom see for further details), since before 1975. With him she co-wrote the fantasy Earth Magic (April-September 1973 Fantastic as "The Son of Black Morca"; 1978) and the critical volumes SF in Dimension (coll 1976; exp 1980) and ...
Kagan, Janet
(1946-2008) US author who began publishing sf with "Faith-of-the-Month Club" (1 February 1982 Analog), as by Anon., and who won a 1993 Hugo Best Novelette Award for "The Nutcracker Coup" (December 1992 Asimov's). Her first sf book was a Star Trek Tie, Uhura's Song (1985), reckoned to be one of the better novels attached to that enterprise. Her ...
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 ...