SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 19 July 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 14 July 2026
Sponsor of the day: John Howard
Cuphead Show!, The
US animated tv series (2022-current). King Features Syndicate, Netflix Animation, Studio MDHR. Created by Chad and Jared Moldenhauer, developed by Dave Wasson. Directed by Clay Morrow and Adam Paloian. Written by Deeki Deke, Clay Morrow, Adam Paloian, Cosmo Segurson and Dave Wasson. Voice cast includes Joe Hanna, Frank Todaro and Tru Valentino. 25 circa twelve-minute episodes. Colour. / The show is based on the Videogame Cuphead ...
Coyle, Harold W
(1952- ) US author who has specialized in Technothrillers hovering at the edge of the Near Future; they include Team Yankee: A Novel of World War III (1987) which – as a Sequel by Another Hand to Sir John Hackett's Third World War novels of the early 1980s – is of interest for the ...
Cheynell, Francis
(1608-1665) UK minister, controversialist from a Presbyterian point of view, and author; his Proto SF Satire, Aulicus His Dream, of the Kings Sudden Comming to London (1644 chap), is one of the first texts in English to be set, even notionally, in the future. The pamphlet complicatedly attacks the Royalist newspaper, Mercurius Aulicus, issues of which were routinely smuggled into London, ...
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared
UK puppet and animated webseries (2011-2016; 2022). This Is It. Created and directed by Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan, Writers include Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan. Voice cast includes Sam Campbell, Joseph Pelling, Becky Sloan and Baker Terry. Six 3-8 minute and six 24-minute episodes, plus a pilot. Colour. / Three children's Television characters – Red Guy (Pelling), whose hair obscures his face; the self-explanatory Duck Guy (Terry) ...
Oboler, Arch
(1909-1987) US scriptwriter, playwright and author, involved in Radio from the early 1930s; he was extremely prolific in that decade, writing and usually producing an estimated 400 radio plays by 1940. His first script, "Futuristics", was broadcast by NBC in celebration of its parent firm's move to the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan; laced with touches of Satire, the script is a paean to the future as seen through the prism of ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star ...