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Wednesday 18 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 16 February 2026
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Iron Maiden
English heavy metal band formed in 1975 by bassist Stephen Harris (1956- ) and characterized by very loud, fast guitar work and the banshee vocals of lead singer Bruce Dickinson (1958- ). The band select promiscuously from established texts as premises for their songs, adapting many novels and (especially) films from war-story, mystery, historical, noir and sf genres. The latter, often inflected via a persistent interest in Satanism and occult ...
Dent, John Charles
(1841-1888) UK-born author in Canada from early childhood, of whose The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales (coll 1888) the title story – "The Gerrard Street Mystery" (May 1877 Belford's Monthly) – is a tale of Precognition. Of the other three long tales, "The Haunted House on Duchess Street" is a ghost story. [JC]
Catalan SF
Catalan is not just the language of Catalonia, but a language shared with other areas of Spain, France, and even Italy. Catalan is also the official language of Andorra, the small country set in the middle of the Pyrenees. Most Catalan speakers are bilingual, with Catalan being used as a first language by fewer than half of them. There is a certainly very solid literary tradition in Catalan, which includes a long list of sf works – among them an indispensable masterpiece, Manuel ...
Space: 1999
UK tv series (1975-1977). A Gerry Anderson Production for ITC. Created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson. Producers Sylvia Anderson (season 1), Fred Freiberger (season 2). Executive producer Gerry Anderson. Directors included Ray Austin, Lee H Katzin, Charles Crichton, David Tomblin, Val Guest and Tom Clegg. Story consultant Christopher Penfold (1941-2024). Special effects: ...
Wyman, L P
(1873-1950) US author, mostly of boys' books, including nonfantastic series like The Golden Boys and The Lakewood Boys sequences; he is of sf interest for a late Airplane Boys series, The Hunniwell Boys sequence beginning with The Hunniwell Boys in the Air (1928). Their adventures in an aeroplane powered by electricity are modestly extravagant, and their exploit in The Hunniwell Boys' Nonstop Flight Around the World ...
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 ...