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Saturday 11 April 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.
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Schwartz, Helen Ruth
(? - ) US author whose sf novel, The Meadowlark Sings (2006), is set in a Near Future Dystopian America governed by the fundamentalist right whose homophobia (see Sex) is given teeth by the discovery of the "Scarpetta gene", which causes homosexuality. When in 2018 an earthquake calves off part of California, which becomes an ...
Mason, Douglas R
(1918-2013) UK junior-school headmaster and prolific author after 1964, both under his own name and as John Rankine (Rankine being his middle name); he was generally silent from about 1980 until his death, though some material was released or re-released in ebook form in 2003. His first story was "Two's Company" as by Rankine in John Carnell's New Writings in SF 1 (1964), and he was soon publishing two to three books a year, focusing under the ...
Visiteurs, Les
French film (1993; vt The Visitors). Gaumont. Directed by Jean-Marie Poiré. Written by Jean-Marie Poiré and Christian Clavier. Cast includes Christian Bujeau, Marie-Anne Chazel, Christian Clavier, Valérie Lemercier, Isabelle Nanty and Jean Reno. 107 minutes. Colour. / In 1123, Count Godefroy de Montmirail (Reno) is promised to be married to Frénégonde de Pouilles (Lemercier), a duke's daughter. A witch he has ...
Johns, Kenneth
Pseudonym used for collaborations between Kenneth Bulmer and John Newman on a long series of science-fact articles for New Worlds and Nebula Science Fiction 1955-1961. [JC]
Zajdel, Janusz A
(1938-1985) Polish author, one of the three most important figures in Polish science fiction of the post-war era, who partly recognized, partly created and defined, and eventually occupied a literary territory that allowed him, along with some other writers, to create social Dystopias critical of the gross perversions and pathologies of the Polish communist state, and by extension totalitarianism in general, without exposing himself to ...
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 ...