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Saturday 11 July 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 7 July 2026
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Lawrence, Mark
(1968- ) US-born author mostly in the UK from infancy, who began to publish work of genre interest with "Climb" in O G's Speculative Fiction for 2007; most of his work has been fantasy, including the violent and dark-hued Broken Universe sequence beginning with Prince of Thorns (2011). The Ancestor sequence beginning with Red Sister (2017) takes the form of a Planetary Romance set on ...
Corpsicle
One of the wittier items of sf Terminology, coined by Frederik Pohl as "corpse-sicle" in his contribution to the Cryonics symposium – also including Robert C W Ettinger – "Immortality Through Freezing" (August 1966 Worlds of Tomorrow), and contracted to "corpsicle" in Pohl's novel ...
Juvenile Series
When dime novels (see Dime-Novel SF) declined and disappeared in the 1900s – partly because of public outcry against their supposed evil effect on boys, and partly because of increasing competition from the Pulp magazines, which had become comparable in price – the torch of juvenile sf was taken up by a new format, illustrated hardcover juvenile book series, and the ideas in these began to range more widely. The ...
Universal Soldier
Film (1992). Carolco International. Directed by Roland Emmerich. Executive producer Mario Kassar. Written by Richard Rothstein, Christopher Leitch, Dean Devlin. Cast includes Dolph Lundgren, Jerry Orbach, Ed O'Ross, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Ally Walker. 103 minutes. Colour. / Crisply made but derivative in most of its plot turns, Universal Soldier centres on a secret military unit of Cyborgs, many reconstructed ...
Sengoku Jieitai
Film (1981; vt Time Slip). Toho. Directed by Kosei Saito. Written by Toshio Kaneda, based on Sengoku Jieitai ["Civil War Self-Defence Force"] (1974) by Ryō Hanmura. Cast includes Sonny Chiba, Iasao Natsuki, Jana Okada and Miyuki Ono. 139 minutes, cut to 100 minutes. Colour. / Based on one of Ryō Hanmura's intelligent novels, which use sf reinterpretations to comment on Japanese history, ...
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 ...