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Thursday 16 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 14 July 2026
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Simearth
Videogame (1990). Maxis. Designed by Will Wright. Platforms: DOS, Mac, Win (1990); AtariST, SNES (1991); Amiga (1992); MegaCD, PCEngineCD (1993). / SimEarth is a Toy Game which simulates the evolution of a terrestrial planet, using a model influenced by James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, a description of the Earth as a self-regulating ...
Back Brain Recluse
UK Semiprozine, from June 1984 to October 2002; edited by Chris Reed initially at Smallfield, Surrey, then (from issue #9) from Chesterfield, Derbyshire, and from #16 from Sheffield, South Yorkshire; 24 issues, published at irregular intervals but usually twice a year, but after issue #21 (November 1992) there was only one issue each in 1994, 1997 and 2002. It began as a slim-but-ambitious A5 format xeroxed Fanzine but switched to A4 ...
Tompkins, Walker A
(1909-1988) US author, mostly of Westerns; he is of sf interest for Ozar the Aztec (January 1933-June 1933 Street and Smith's Top-Notch all sections under the House Name Valentine Wood; fixup 1935), a Lost Race tale whose inhabitants, under the leadership of Ozar, survive in the contemporary West. [JC]
Spy X Family
Japanese Anime tv series (2022). Wit Studio, CloverWorks. Based on the Manga by Tatsuya Endo. Directed by Kazuhiro Furuhashi. Written by Honoka Katou, Tomomi Kawaguchi, Daishiro Tanimura and Rino Yamazaki. Voice cast includes Takuya Eguchi, Saori Hayami and Atsumi Tanezaki. Twelve 24-minute episodes. Colour. / Ostania and the Westalis are nations engaged in a Cold War. The new assignment of Westalis spy ...
Human Kind Of
US animated online series (2018). Facebook Watch. Created by Diana McCorry. Executive Producers Adam Belfer, James Belfer, Diana McCorry and Daniel Shepard. Written by Jamie Loftus, Diana McCorry, Daniel Shepard and Moujan Zolfaghari. Directed by Joy Buran and Noelle Melody. Voice cast includes Kate Berlant, Jamie Loftus, Zak Orth, Jill Talley and Michelle Trachtenberg. Twenty-one 4-10 minute episodes to date. Colour. / On her sixteenth birthday, science nerd Judy Reilly ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...