SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 14 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 10 August 2026
Sponsor of the day: David Cowhig
Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
Space Pirate Captain Harlock
Japanese animated tv series (1978-1979). Original title Uchū Kaizoku Kyaputen Hārokku. Based on the Manga by Leiji Matsumoto. Toei Animation. Directed by Rintaro. Written by Shozo Uehara and Haruya Yamazaki. Voice cast includes Makio Inoue, Chiyoko Kawashima, Haruko Kitahama, Noriko Ohara, Hiroshi Ōtake and Keaton Yamada. Forty-two 25 minute ...
Streib, Daniel T
(1928-1996) US journalist and author, who also wrote as by F Faragut Jones, Jonathan Schofield and Lee Davis Willoughby; much of his work was for children. His first novel, Operation: Countdown (1970) with Robert Page Jones, is a Near Future tale involving sabotage in near space; his Counter Force sequence beginning with Counter Force (1983) comprises a set of Technothriller tales with a strong ...
Splatter Movies
Term used by 1980s movie-goers to describe films that display gore, disembowelment and mutilation as a central feature. Many exploitation films of the 1970s and 1980s fall into this category, including such fringe sf/Horror movies as Bad Taste (1987), Day of the Dead (1985), Re-Animator (1985) and The Thing ...
Coxwell, Henry
(1819-1900) UK balloonist, editor and author; working under the name Henry Wells he was founder and editor of The Balloonist; Or, Aerostatic Magazine in 1845, which lasted only until 1847. His interest in piloting Balloons extended, through at least one dangerous crash, until his retirement from flying in 1885. Of some sf interest is A Knight of the Air; Or, the Aereal Rivals (1895) in which flight is achieved, not through an advanced ...
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 ...