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Thursday 12 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 9 February 2026
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Carver, Jeffrey A
(1949-2026) US author who began publishing sf with "... Of No Return" in Fiction Magazine for 1974. His first novel, Seas of Ernathe (1976), which serves as an introduction to the loose Star Rigger sequence of Space Operas, showed early signs of a love of plot and thematic complexity which would take him some time, and several novels, to control. The continuation, Star Rigger's Way (1978), for instance, combines quest ...
Knox, Hugh
(1942-2011) US author of erotic novels, some of them sf (see Sex), including Eros 2000 AD (1970) as by H R Kaye, which suggests that the Near Future will be engaging; and The Satyr (1970), which hints at Superman tropes. [JC]
Gothic SF
In current usage a "Gothic" is a romantic novel with a strong element of the mysterious or the supernatural which usually features the persecution of a woman in an isolated locale; but this restricted and specialized use of the word, and the marketing category associated with it, have little to do with most sf. The term "Gothic" entered the English language as a descriptive term for a particular kind of story with the publication of The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story (1764) by ...
SSSS.Dynazenon
Japanese animated tv series (2021). Trigger. Directed by Akira Amemiya. Written by Keiichi Hasegawa. Voice cast includes Chika Anzai, Junya Enoki, Daiki Hamano, Yūichirō Umehara and Shion Wakayama. Twelve 24-minute episodes. Colour. / High schooler Yomogi Asanaka (Enoki) gives his lunch to the starving Gauma (Hamano) who lives under a bridge. Later, Gauma berates Yume Minami (Wakayama) when she stands up Yomogi, to his ...
Poland
Most Western sf readers associate Poland principally with the work of Stanisław Lem, whose books, widely published, much appreciated, and thoroughly scrutinized in the West, had a profound impact on the field. Lem still remains an iconic figure both in and out of Poland, while his enormous worldwide popularity more or less directly inspired the interest in the earlier Fantastika (John Clute's ...
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 ...