SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 18 February 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 16 February 2026
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Arden, Leon
(? - ) US photographer, playwright and author The Twilight's Last Gleaming (1972), an Alternate History set after World War Two, with General Alfred Jodl (in real life executed in 1946) governing the state of West Germany, which America invades to prevent German development of a nuclear capacity: too late in the event, as Germany bombs Russia. One Fine Day ...
Nichijou
Japanese animated tv series (2011; vt Nichijou: My Ordinary Life). Based on the Manga by Keiichi Arawi. Kyoto Animation. Directed by Tatsuya Ishihara, Written by Jukki Hanada. Voice cast includes Mai Aizawa, Shizuka Furuya, Mariko Honda, Chika Horikawa, Yoshihisa Kawahara, Hiromi Konno, Kaoru Mizuhara, Minoru Shiraishi and Misuzu Togashi. 26 25-minute episodes and one OVA. Colour. / Attending Tokisadame High School are the ...
Samson, Joan
(1937-1976) US author of only one novel before her early death from brain cancer. The Auctioneer (1975), a tale of Fantastika that avoids any explicit sf conclusion, is set in an isolated New England town (see Zone) whose binding communal Perception of immunity from American life as a whole is threatened then shattered by through the irruption of the eponymous ...
Muller, Robert
(1925-1998) German author, playwright and screenwriter, in the UK from 1938. His sf novel is The Lost Diaries of Albert Smith (1965; vt After All, This Is England 1967), a Near Future Dystopia in which the consequences of a fascist takeover of Britain are examined. Also in the 1960s he adapted two stories by Isaac Asimov and one by Clifford D ...
Smith, Nicholas Sansbury
(1983- ) US author whose several series have generally focused on Near Future Holocausts and/or Disasters, the first of these being the Orbs sequence beginning with Orbs (2013), where it is decided that Ecologically ravished Earth must be abandoned, but the overnight wiping-out by Aliens of almost every ...
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 ...