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Saturday 8 February 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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Sarrantonio, Al
(1952-2025) US editor and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Ahead of the Joneses" in Asimov's for March 1979. Much of his work was horror, sometimes tinged with sf (see Horror in SF), including his first novel, The Worms (1985), a Gothic tale set in Massachusetts with hints of H P Lovecraft; and the Equipoisal Moonbane ...
Serafini, Luigi
(1949- ) Italian architect, artist, designer and author who has consistently focused his work, in whatever medium, on imaginary constructs, whether organic entities, buildings, furniture, artworks and Illustrations, or books-as-objects. Of sf interest is the extraordinary Codex Seraphinianus (1981 2vols; more than one varying edition; most significant rev 2013), a heavily illustrated pseudo-encyclopedia of an apparent ...
Gate, The
UK Semiprozine, irregular, three issues, published by Richard Newcombe, W Publishing, Peterborough; #1 (Summer) 1989 in pocketbook format edited by Maureen Porter (with help from the Peterborough Science Fiction Club); subsequent issues, #2 undated (Summer 1990) and #3 December 1990, A4 format, edited by Paul Cox. Besides fiction it ran film reviews by Kim Newman and book reviews by various hands. Despite the obvious efforts that ...
Games
For games as a theme within sf, see Games and Sports. This entry deals with games based on sf and provides a gateway to the extensive network of game entries added in the third edition of this encyclopedia. / Games are an ancient form of entertainment which have been part of human culture since at least 2600 BCE, when the Royal Game of Ur was played in Mesopotamia (see Board Games). The long history of ...
Kindermann, Eberhard Christian
(1715-? ) German [ie Saxon] translator and astronomer whose speculations about the existence of at least one moon orbiting Mars are presented in his nonfiction Vollständidge Astronomie ["Complete Astronomy"] (1744), the revision of an earlier work [for details including full titles see Checklist below]. Later that year – in ...
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 ...