SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 18 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 16 July 2025
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Williams, Tess
(1954-2025) UK-born teacher, editor and author, in Australia for many years, there receiving a degree in literature from Curtin University and an MA in creative writing from the University of Western Australia. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Padwan Affair" in She's Fantastical (anth 1995) edited by Judith Raphael Buckrich and Lucy Sussex. Of sf interest are two novels: Map of Power (1996), set mostly in a ...
Prime Directive
Item of Terminology popularized through the original television Star Trek, in which the Prime Directive – also known as Starfleet General Order #1 – prohibits interference with the "normal" development of a planetary or other culture; inevitably this is violated several times in the series and its sequels. Jack Williamson first introduced the term to sf in "With Folded Hands ..." ...
Steussy, Marti
(1955- ) US ordained minister in the Disciples of Christ, Christian academic whose nonfiction focuses on Biblical themes, and author of the short Forest of the Night sequence about First Contact. In Forest of the Night (1987) the Aliens are, as the Blakean title hints, tiger-like, though feathered, and must be protected from settlers on their planet who hope to hunt them down (see ...
Optimism and Pessimism
In the most simplistic version of the History of SF, sf was always (and rightly) an optimistic literature until the New Wave came along in the 1960s and spoiled everything. This was at best a very partial truth, being only usefully, though by no means universally, applicable to Genre SF, but not to the Scientific Romance, nor to the loose array of works by ...
Invincible
US animated tv series (2021-current). Amazon Studios, Image Comics, Skybound Entertainment. Based on the Comic book by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley. Directed by Jeff Allen, Paul Furminger and Robert Valley. Written by Chris Black, Curtis Gwinn, Robert Kirkman, Christine Lavaf, Simon Racioppa and Ryan Ridley. Voice cast includes Gillian Jacobs, Sandra Oh, Zachary Quinto, Kevin Michael Richardson, J. K. Simmons and Steven Yeun. Eight episodes of ...
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 ...