SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 11 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
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
Crazies, The
Film (1973; vt Code Name Trixie). Cambist Films. Directed by George Romero. Written by Romero, based on a story by Paul McCollough. Cast includes Lane Carroll, Harold Wayne Jones and W G McMillan. 104 minutes. Colour. / A plane carrying germ-warfare material crashes near a small US town and pollutes the drinking-water, causing an epidemic of homicidal and psychopathic behaviour in the inhabitants. The army moves in and the crazed brutality ...
Rutledge, Maryse
Working name of US author Marie Rutledge Gibson Hale (1884-? ), active from around 1910; in her sf novel, The Silver Peril (1931), a Russian super-criminal attempts to dominate the world by using his super-helicopter (see Airships) to enable him to decimate the population of Bucharest with his Death Ray. In the end, hampered by megalomania, the Villain blows himself up along ...
Daimajū Gekitō: Hagane no Oni
Japanese Original Video Animation (OVA) (1987; vt Demon of Steel: Battle of the Great Demon Beasts; vt Steel Devil). AIC. Directed by Toshihiro Hirano. Written by Shō Aikawa. Voice cast includes Toshio Furukawa, Kazuhiko Inoue, Osamu Saka, Mayumi Shō and Sakiko Tamagawa. 60 minutes. Colour. / In 1999 a research station on the island of Sansara discovers a new type of quark ("the quark of Malhuder") (see ...
Stead, W T
(1849-1912) UK editor (from 1871) and author; brother of F Herbert Stead. He edited Borderland, a journal dealing with psychic phenomena, during 1893-1897, and founded and edited The Review of Reviews in 1890. His contribution to The Rajah's Sapphire (1896) uncredited with M P Shiel may not extend further than supplying the plot to Shiel. He is perhaps most notorious for an article, "Maiden Tribute ...
Tokusatsu
Tokusatsu is a contraction of the Japanese term tokushu satsuei ["special photography"] and is the term for special effects used in live action film and Television. It is mainly associated with those sf, Fantasy and Horror productions that are dominated by special effects; thus there are many works in those genres not classifiable as Tokusatsu. / Strictly speaking, ...
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 ...