SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 13 September 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 7 September 2026
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Ljoka, Dan
(1935- ) US author of Shelter (1973) a Holocaust tale set during and immediately after World War Three; the hero, trapped Underground with fertile women, is forced to have Sex with them. Everyone dies. [JC]
Astonishing [comic]
US Comic (1951-1957). Atlas Comics (see Marvel Comics). 61 issues (numbered #3-#63). Artists include Sol Brodsky, Carl Burgos, Dick Ayers, Tony DiPreta and Ed Winiarski; others who worked only on 1-2 strips include Lou Cameron, Reed Crandall, Steve Ditko, Myron Fass, Jack ...
Faceless, The
US metal band formed in Encino, Los Angeles in 2004, active through many line-up changes. Their second album, Planetary Duality (2008), is a concept album about the takeover of Earth by Aliens from an alternate Dimension, somewhat bizarrely inspired by conspiracy theorist David Icke’s "non-fiction" book The Children of the Matrix (2001). The relentlessly hyperactive drumming, high speed guitar solos and ...
Star Encounters
Letter-size saddle-stapled Media Magazine printed on newsprint. Published by Myron Fass as Stories, Layouts and Press. Editor: Jeffrey Goodman. Three bimonthly issues, all in 1978. / One of several sf Cinema magazines issued by Myron Fass from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, Star Encounters was among the shortest-lived. It featured some UFO material in the ...
Libraries
Libraries inevitably feature from time to time in Genre SF and other Fantastika, as repositories of knowledge and power-houses of Education in SF. A famous mathematical Thought Experiment is the unthinkably vast yet provably finite Total Library containing all book-length permutations of letters and numerals, and thus all possible books. This was proposed by ...
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 ...