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Monday 13 April 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 6 April 2026
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Keating, H R F
(1926-2011) UK author, active from the late 1950s, almost all of his work being detective novels, notably those featuring Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID, though he also wrote some ghost stories. Novels of sf interest include The Strong Man (1971), a Dystopian tale set on the Atlantic Island of Oceana south of Ireland; its name echoes George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four ...
X Series, The
Videogame series (from 1999). Egosoft. / The X Series is a line of Space Sims, descended from Elite (1984). The player has considerable freedom to explore, trade, mine asteroids, fight pirates (or become one), carry out missions (including bounty-hunting and passenger transport), or create a commercial empire of space-based factories and fleets of starships. The game universe itself is ...
Du Bois, Theodora
(1890-1986) US playwright and author whose first play, The Sleeping Beauty: A Play With or Without Pageantry (1919 chap), is fantasy; except for The Traveling Toys (1934), a Tale of Circulation, her several books for younger children are not listed below. Du Bois remains best known for her many detective novels, often on medical themes, and for several fantasies, including her first novel, The Devil's Spoon ...
Rennie, Gordon
(? - ) Scottish journalist, comics writer and author of two Ties to the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Warhammer 40,000: Shadow Point (2003) being of some sf interest. He also wrote a Judge Dredd Comics-Tie, Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death (2003). [JC]
Royce, E R
(? - ) Author, perhaps pseudonymous, of whom nothing is known beyond his author credit for the Curtis Warren sf novel Experiment in Telepathy (1954). In the second edition of this encyclopedia Royce was listed as a pseudonym of Denis Hughes, an attribution which has never been adequately confirmed. [DRL]
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 ...