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Friday 11 July 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 7 July 2025
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XYZ
Pseudonym of the unidentified UK author (? -? ) of The Vril Staff (1891), an unauthorized Sequel by Other Hands to Edward Bulwer Lytton's The Coming Race (1871), in which vril is the Power Source for a vastly effective Weapon, whose wielder initially eliminates Indians in the ...
Roguelike
Roguelikes or Rogue-likes are a type of Computer Role Playing Game or CRPG with a number of common gameplay features. The player must move their character, or party of characters through a dungeon or map with a series of levels, fighting Monsters of increasing difficulty. Most typically, the player is subject to "permadeath"; if a character or member of a party dies, then they are lost permanently. If all characters ...
New Genre
US Small Press Semiprozine, an annual Print Magazine which has seen seven issues since Spring 2000, published by New Genre Enterprises, Somerville, Massachusetts, edited by Adam Golaski, who for the first four issues used the byline Jeff Paris. A neatly packaged review-size Magazine, with no outward indication of its contents, and ...
Contributors
Contributors to this encyclopedia may be identified by their initials, appearing (along with others if the entry has multiple authors) at the end of the main text for each entry. The first list below links initials to full names. Roughly half of the contributors themselves receive entries in this book, and are listed below with their surnames marked as normal hyperlinks to their entries. Brief descriptions of contributors without entries are incorporated into the list. A second list, further ...
Chamberlain, Betsey
(1797-1886) US worker, farmer and author, of Native American stock; she is of interest for the inherent merit of her thought, but also because of her background, an unusual combination for any writer in the 1840s, much less a woman. She contributed three stories of interest to an enterprising local magazine (she worked in Lowell, Massachusetts at the time): "A Vision of Truth" (May 1841 Lowell Offering) as by Tabitha; "A New Society" (August 1841 Lowell Offering) as by Tabitha, ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...