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Thursday 20 August 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.
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Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld (see Flat Earth) resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the ...
New People, The
US tv series (1969-1970) Thomas/Spelling Productions for Paramount Television ABC TV network. Created by Larry Gordon. Produced by Harold Gast. Directors include Charles S Dubin, Harry Harvey Jr and William Wiard. Scriptwriters include Edwin Blum, Paul Dubov, Gast and Stephen Kandel. Rod Serling was reportedly involved in developing the series concept, and may have written some episodes under unidentified pseudonyms. Cast includes Tiffany Bolling, Zooey ...
Twelve Forever
US animated online tv series (2015; 2019). Puny Entertainment and The Cartel for Netflix. Created by Julia Vickerman. Executive Producers Bradford Bricken, Jeff Holland, Shadi Petosky, Stan Spry and Julia Vickerman. Directors include Annisa Adjani, John Mathot and Nick Sumida. Writers include Kelsy Abbott, Spencer Rothbell, Julia Vickerman and Laura Zak. Voice cast includes Kelsy Abbott, Jaylen Barron, Stephanie Beatriz, Matt Berry, Antony Del Rio, Bridget Everett and Paul ...
Lost Worlds
This rubric covers Lost Races, lost Cities, lost lands and Islands: all the enclaves of mystery in a rapidly shrinking world that featured so largely in the sf of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This subgenre was obviously a successor to the Fantastic Voyages of the eighteenth century and earlier, but there are important distinctions to be drawn. The ...
Vansittart, Peter
(1920-2008) UK author best known for his densely written historical novels, whose polymathic metaphoric richness brought an aesthetic seriousness and density to that form; his consistent failure to gain a wide readership, over a career that lasted more than six decades, must qualify any claim that he transformed the historical novel as a whole – though it seems certain that those who read him were deeply influenced by his example. Vansittart's first novel, however, is sf, a form he used ...
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 ...