SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 15 August 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 10 August 2026
Sponsor of the day: David Cowhig
Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
Tanigawa Nagaru
(1970- ) Japanese author largely in the Light Novel (chapbook) format, whose works bridge the ever-closing gap between fans of literary sf, Manga and Anime in Japanese culture. A graduate in Law from Kwansei Gakuin University, he first published sf with Dengeki Aegis 5 ["Shock! Aegis 5"] (March 2003 Dengeki Moeō; fixup 2004), a ...
Roberts, Wilfred Joseph
(1898-1976) UK illustrator, active from the early 1930s, almost exclusively for magazines and publishers whose works were deemed ephemeral, so that much of his output remains obscure; he is thought to have normally signed his work W J Roberts, W F Roberts or L J Roberts, though much may be anonymous or under other names. He is credited in this encyclopedia for three volumes of the Gees sequence by E Charles Vivian writing as Jack Mann, ...
Ray Bradbury Theater
US tv series (1985-1986; 1988-1992). Atlantis Films/Wilcox Productions for Home Box Office (HBO) and later USA Network. Executive producers Michael MacMillan, Larry Wilcox, Ray Bradbury; produced by Seaton McLean; teleplays by Bradbury, based on his own stories. Leading actors included Drew Barrymore, James Coco, Jeff Goldblum, Nick Mancuso, Peter O'Toole, William Shatner. 65 episodes of 23-28 minutes. Season ...
Carcavilla, Nicolás
(1993- ) Chilean musician, active in the fields of psychedelic music, dub and electronica under various names. The Last Servants (2024) is a concept album set in a Dystopian future, in which a fallen dictator transfers his consciousness into a Robot to escape to a distant planet, but crashes on to Antarctica, where he muses on consciousness, mortality and his own past. The ...
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 ...