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Wednesday 11 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
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
Wu Dingbo
(1941- ) Chinese academic and sf scholar based at the English Department of the Shanghai International Studies University. His PhD in English is from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, his dissertation being titled "Utopias by American Women". With Patrick D Murphy he translated and edited Science Fiction from China (anth 1989), an important English-language sampler which contains eight ...
Futurama
US animated tv series (1999-2003; 2010-2013; 2023-current). The Curiosity Company, 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Television Animation. Created by Matt Groening and David X Cohen. Producers include Groening and Cohen. Writers include Cohen, Kristin Gore, Groening, Eric Horsted, Ken Keeler and Jeff Westbrook. Directors include Peter Avanzino, Dwayne Carey-Hill, Bret Haaland, Ron Hughart, Rich Moore, Brian Sheesley, and Gregg Vanzo. Cast includes John Di Maggio, Phil ...
Porter, David Dixon
(1813-1891) US naval officer, the second to be appointed Admiral, a prominent figure in the American Civil War, later superintendent of the Naval Academy at Annapolis; of several novels published late in his life, The Adventures of Harry Marline; Or, Notes from an American Midshipman's Lucky Bag (1885) is a Lost Race tale for boys, involving Monsters of the deep and other strange encounters. [JC]
Cover, Arthur Byron
(1950- ) US author. He was involved in the Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop in 1971-1972, and began publishing sf with "Gee, Isn't He the Cutest Little Thing?" in Alien Condition (anth 1973) edited by Stephen Goldin. His first novel, Autumn Angels (1975), the first of the very loose Autumn Angels sequence, with introduction by ...
Shteyngart, Gary
(1972- ) Russian-born author, in US since 1979; his birth-name, which he changed at an early age, was Igor Shteyngart. The extravagance of his first novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook (2002), with its confabulatory rendering of an imaginary Prague (here named Prava), slips uneasily into hints of a fuller Fantastika. Of his later works two are of more direct sf interest: Absurdistan (2006) is a gonzo ...
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 ...