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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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Dain, Alex
Pseudonym of US therapist and author Alex Lukeman (1941- ), who has published under his own name several books on the nature of dreams and the ongoing thriller series The Project, which relates the exploits of the eponymous secret US counter-terrorism unit, beginning with White Jade (2011). Lukeman used the Alex Dain byline for his first novel only: The Bane of Kanthos (1969 dos), which is ...
Payne, Bernal C, Jr
(1941- ) US author the protagonists of whose Time Travel novel for Young Adult readers, It's About Time (1984; vt Trapped in Time 1986), travels back to 1955 where they meet their parents as teenagers. The future children of their marriage must ensure it takes place. The slightly later Back to the Future, released 1985, was conceived ...
Challenging Destiny
Canadian Small Press low-paying magazine of science fiction and fantasy, published by Crystalline Sphere Publishing, St Marys, Ontario; edited throughout by David M Switzer, initially with Graham D Wall (issues 1 and 2) and then Robert P Switzer (#3-#12). It ran for 25 issues between May 1997 to December 2007, as a Print Magazine until #17 (December 2003) and thereafter as an ...
Deadly Harvest
Film (1977). Burg-Ambassador, Joebeck Production. Directed by Timothy Bond. Written by Martin Lager. Cast includes David Brown, Kim Cattrall, Gary Davies, Nehemiah Persoff and Clint Walker. 87 minutes. Colour. / Deadly Harvest is set in an over-industrialized Near Future America where Climate Change in the form of global cooling has shrunk available farmland. Predictably this leads to chaos, with roving ...
Arrival
Film (2016). Paramount Pictures presents a 21 Laps Entertainment, FilmNation Entertainment and Lava Bear Films production. Directed by Denis Villeneuve. Written by Eric Heisserer, based on "Story of Your Life" (in Starlight 2, anth 1998, ed Patrick Nielsen Hayden) by Ted Chiang. Cast includes Amy Adams, Tzi Ma, Jeremy Renner, Michael Stuhlbarg and Forest Whitaker. ...
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 ...