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Friday 11 July 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 7 July 2025
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Wood, Charlotte
(1965- ) Australian author whose work has generally been nonfantastic. Of sf interest is The Natural Way of Things (2015), set in a very Near Future Dystopian Australia and centering on a group of women first drugged (see Drugs) then forcibly confined to a Keep deep in the outback. They discover that they are being punished (see ...
Beastars
Japanese animated tv series (2019-current). Based on the Manga by Paru Itagaki. Orange. Directed by Shinichi Matsumi. Written by Nanami Higuchi. Voice cast includes Chikahiro Kobayashi, Yūki Ono and Sayaka Senbongi. 24 23-minute episodes. Colour. / Beastar's world is much like ours (see Alternate History), but its civilization consists of anthropomorphized animals and birds (whose ...
Magnetism
While Gravity was long understood as a force that attracted people to the ground, it was accepted as a logical consequence of Earth's position at the center of the universe – as explained by Aristotle; but when it was discovered in ancient times that lodestones – naturally occurring magnets – could attract pieces of iron, the phenomenon seemed more mysterious and suggested the possibility of other strange attractive or repellent forces. Thus, ...
Urban, Simon
(1975- ) German author of sf interest for Plan D (2011; trans Katy Derbyshire 2013), an Alternate History Dystopia in which, having survived the turmoil or "wende" of 1989-1990, the German Democratic Republic struggles against inherent dogma and corruption until 2011, becoming increasingly similar to the kind of world George ...
Vasari, Ruggero
(1898-1968) Italian painter, editor and author associated with Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in the evolution of Futurism before around 1930, but strongly opposed to Marinetti's "robust" exaltation of the Machine as the shaping engine of a clean future. Vasari dramatized his opposition in L'angoscia delle macchine ["The Anguish of the Machines"] (written 1923; 1925 chap), a play set in a surreal ...
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 ...