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Monday 16 March 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 9 March 2026
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Key, Frank
Pseudonym of UK author and broadcaster Paul Byrne (1959-2019), whose early work appeared as limited-edition pamphlets – often self-illustrated – from the London-based Malice Aforethought Press which he co-founded in 1986 with Maxim Décharné (also published by the press). The first to be of genre interest, if tangentially, is perhaps Forty Visits to the Worm Farm (1987 chap). Key's stories tend towards surrealism and ...
Icarus
US magazine of gay Speculative Fiction available in both print and downloadable formats. Published by Lethe Press, Maple Shade, New Jersey and edited by Steve Berman. Published quarterly since Summer 2009. Icarus publishes stories of speculative fiction that feature gay male protagonists though the contributors themselves need not be gay. It also includes Interviews with and essays by gay authors or about straight ...
Smith, George Albert
(1864-1959) Pioneering UK filmmaker (see Cinema), sometimes referred to as G A Smith. Initially a stage hypnotist and part of an act with Douglas Blackburn involving mind-reading (see Telepathy) and second sight (see ESP), Smith joined the Society for Psychical Research in 1883. He worked with Edmund Gurney, who was investigating Hypnotism, telepathy and suchlike: Smith, along with ...
Lockwood, Todd
(1957- ) US illustrator known primarily for his Fantasy work and for his long association with TSR/Dungeons & Dragons and then Wizards of the Coast. He received his formal art education at Colorado Institute of Art (now the Colorado Art Institute), and initially worked for a design agency before turning to full-time Illustration for clients in the advertising industry. / It was his interest in ...
Alraune
Film (1928; vt Unholy Love; vt Daughter of Destiny). Ama Film. Directed by Henrik Galeen. Written by Galeen, based on Alraune (1911; trans 1929) by Hanns Heinz Ewers. Cast includes Brigitte Helm, Ivan Petrovich and Paul Wegener. 125 minutes. Black and white. / A professor of genetics (Wegener) conducts a cold-blooded experiment into the Nature-versus-nurture controversy. Using the semen of a hanged man to ...
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 ...