SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 13 March 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 9 March 2026
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Retro Hugo
Retrospective Hugo awards may be voted under certain circumstances to fill the perceived gap left by a past World SF Convention at which no Hugos were presented. Besides the voting of the usual Hugos for the previous year's sf, a Worldcon committee may optionally allow its members to choose Retro Hugos which might have been but were not presented at the Worldcon of 50, 75 or 100 years previously ...
Arctic Monkeys
UK indie rock band formed in Sheffield in 2002, led by singer-songwriter Alex Turner (1986- ), who quickly achieved international success, partly through their then-innovative Internet-based marketing campaigns. Their sixth album, Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino (2018), follows several characters staying at a luxury hotel on the site of the 1969 Moon landing, and largely leaves behind their hard-edged guitar based style for a ...
Daleks
Sinister and implacable Aliens in the Television series Doctor Who: bent on universal conquest, they are Mutants rendered immobile by radioactivity, inhabiting metal transporters as Cyborgs with built-in Blasters (see Mecha) and manipulators. Their rallying cry, delivered in their ...
Jacques, Jeph
(1980- ) US musician and Comics artist now living in Canada, best known for his long-running webcomic Questionable Content [see links below], which launched on 1 August 2003 and which he describes as "an internet comic strip about friendship, romance, and robots". New instalments initially appeared twice weekly and later three times weekly; from September 2004 the strip has been published every weekday (though with a few ...
Blackford, Russell
(1954- ) Australian author and critic. The best of his small output of sf may be "Glass Reptile Breakout" (in Strange Attractors, anth 1985, ed Damien Broderick), the title story of Glass Reptile Breakout (anth 1990) edited by Van Ikin, a Cyberpunk tale of self-healing teenagers. His only novel, The Tempting of the Witch King (1983), ...
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 ...