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Sunday 8 February 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 6 February 2026
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Sallis, James
(1944-2026) US musician, poet and author, briefly active in New Worlds during its Michael Moorcock-directed New-Wave phase; he began to publish work of genre interest in this context with "Kazoo" (August 1967 New Worlds) and co-edited the magazine 1968-1969. His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work ...
Waiting for the Barbarians
The title of a poem by the major Greek author C P Cavafy (1863-1933). Periménontas toủs Varvárous ["Waiting for the Barbarians"] (written 1898; 1904 pamphlet) is famous for this title, for its structure, and for the sting in its tale. The title itself has become a Meme, although it is a tag almost impossible to pin one firm meaning to. Not unusually for Cavafy, the text of the poem is constructed as an almost realized narrative, ...
Murdock, M S
(1947- ) US author who began writing sf with a Star Trek tie, Web of the Romulans (1983), and who later continued in much the same vein with her two Buck Rogers sequences: the Buck Rogers Martian Wars Trilogy beginning with Buck Rogers: Rebellion 2456 (1989) and one title contributed to the Buck Rogers Inner Planets Trilogy: ...
Interviews with Monster Girls
Japanese animated tv series (2017). Original title Demi-chan wa Kataritai. A-1 Pictures. Based on the Japanese Manga by Petosu. Directors include Ryō Andō. Written by Petosu and Takao Yoshioka. Voice cast includes Yōko Hikasa, Kaede Hondo, Shiina Natsukawa, Minami Shinoda and Junichi Suwabe. Thirteen 22-minute episodes. Colour. / Biology teacher Tetsuo Takahashi (Suwabe) learns that ...
Liss, David
(1966- ) US comics writer and author, most of whose novels have been historical thrillers, beginning with A Conspiracy of Paper (2000), most featuring Benjamin Weaver [not listed below]. A Young Adult series, the Randoms sequence beginning with Randoms (2015), a slightly helter-skelter though deliberately comic narrative whose young protagonist Zeke discovers that the sf he had devoured when even ...
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 ...