SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
Ruined Earth
Term used in this encyclopedia for the longer-range sf aftermath of Disaster and Holocaust scenarios. First comes the cataclysm, then the Post-Holocaust struggle with a general emphasis on survival and adaptation. If humanity avoids extinction, the details of past technology and the fall of civilization are apt to become increasingly blurred – and often mythologized – with each new ...
Regeneration
A minor but persistent sf wish-fulfilment related to Medicine is the fantasy of regrowing amputated limbs and recovering from other normally irrevocable physical losses. The often invoked analogy is with primitive creatures like salamanders and starfish which are able to regenerate severed parts; can future science not confer a similar ability on human beings? One well-known sf example is the "Phillips treatment" introduced in E E ...
Smith, W T F
(? -? ) US medical doctor, journalist and author of the lightly fictionalized The Trust Trusted (1906), apparently written as early as 1904, in which a new American president helps transform his land into a Utopia with common ownership of capital. [JC]
Harrison, Troon
(1958- ) Canadian author, initially of picture books for children, more recently of Young Adult novels; she is deft with horses. The Tales of Terre sequence [see Checklist] is fantasy. Of sf interest is Eye of the Wolf (2003), set in a Dystopian North America a century hence as it faces a new Ice Age, the young protagonist, whose mother has been inveigled into the warm South, experiences ...
Curtis, A C
(1867-? ) UK author of a Future War novel, A New Trafalgar: A Tale of the Torpedo Fleet (1902), whose focus is (as the title indicates) on naval operations. [JC]
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 ...