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Sunday 7 December 2025
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 1 December 2025
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
de Gourmont, Remy
(1858-1915) French author, whose early work resembles that of Henri de Régnier, and in whose Une Nuite au Luxembourg (1906; trans Arthur Ransome as A Night in the Luxembourg 1912) a superior Alien, whose people occupy the Outer Planets, visits Earth briefly and engages in an illuminating conversation with some cultured humans. ...
Flournoy, Théodore
(1854-1920) French psychologist, psychic researcher and author whose Des Indes à la planète Mars (1899; trans Daniel B Vermilye as From India to the Planet Mars 1900) [for further details see checklist below] depicts in lightly fictionalized form some narratives generated by the medium "Hélène Smith" (1861-1929), including a presentation of herself as the Reincarnation of Marie Antoinette, and as a visitor ...
Richardson, E
Working name of Edith Richardson (1867-1935), UK illustrator and author who also published as Emmeline Richardson and as Eva Richardson. Neutopia (1925), a tale Equipoisal between the Scientific Romance and the formal Utopia, depicts a Lost World come upon by male explorers, even though it is protected by a desert (whose location is not given). Here a ...
Zoo
A Zoo is an enclosure whose inmates are not allowed to leave and who may be observed at will. With the possible exceptions of the ghetto, the quarantine and the Prison, the Zoo thus defined can be distinguished from other enclosed venues, real or imagined: from the wildlife preserve, the Keep, the Island, the circus, the reservation, the Garden City, the Utopia or ...
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 ...