SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 15 June 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 9 June 2025
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Longyear, Barry B
(1942-2025) US author and editor who ran a printing company with his wife before beginning to write in 1977, beginning to publish work of genre interest with "The Tryouts" in Asimov's for November/December 1978. Before his 1981 hospitalization for alcoholism and addiction to prescription drugs – an experience which formed the basis of his non-sf novel Saint Mary Blue (1988) – he had already published prolifically, sometimes as by Frederick ...
Laika
UK indie-rock band founded in 1993 by US-born musician and singer Margaret Fiedler McGinnis (1967- ) and UK bass-guitarist John Frenett (1970- ) and named (of course) for the first mammal to orbit the earth. The group's complexly rhythmic, slippery, hypnotic music manifests a persistent fascination with outer space. The band's first release, Silver Apples of the Moon (1995) – this album has no relation to Morton ...
Baker, Scott
(1947- ) US-born author, who spent much of his career in France; for most of that career he has written fantasy and horror, some of it with distinction; his only sf novel is his first book, Symbiote's Crown (1978), a slyly intelligent though uneasily metaphysical Space Opera involving intricate hegiras through Parallel Worlds. Its French edition won the 1982 Prix Apollo for best SF novel ...
Barker, D A
(1947- ) UK telecommunications engineer and author whose first two novels were sf published by Robert Hale Limited: A Matter of Evolution (1975), in which a Mutant race on Earth imports female humanoids for research, and A Question of Reality (1981). [DRL]
Retcon
Shorthand for "retroactive continuity", the rewriting of established back-story, also used as a verb; a widespread practice in Comics and far from unknown in sf prose series. Its first appearance was in the letter column of the DC Comics title All-Star Squadron #18 for February 1983, actually on sale three months before the notional date. The term as originally conceived referred to continuity inserts that added to existing story ...
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 ...