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Friday 13 June 2025
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.
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Longyear, Barry B
(1942-2025) US author and editor who ran a printing company with his wife before beginning to write in 1977, beginning to publish work of genre interest with "The Tryouts" in Asimov's for November/December 1978. Before his 1981 hospitalization for alcoholism and addiction to prescription drugs – an experience which formed the basis of his non-sf novel Saint Mary Blue (1988) – he had already published prolifically, sometimes as by Frederick ...
Sims, D N
(1940- ) UK author of two sf novels for Robert Hale Limited: A Plenteous Seed (1973), which depicts upheaval in an ambiguous Utopia or Dystopia; and The Pastime of Eternity (1975), in which an Stellar Council envoy investigates the mysteries of a planet called Midori. [JC/DRL]
Dream Hacking
Term used in this encyclopedia for the now frequent sf trope in which entry is made into someone's personal dreams or mental landscape (as though this literal Inner Space were a physical geography or Pocket Universe) to study or influence the contents. This has long been imagined as an intriguing technique of future Psychology. / A pioneering sf example is Peter ...
Brown, Robin
(1937- ) UK author of a Near Future political tale, A Forest Is a Long Time Growing (1967), which is set in Africa, and of Megalodon (1981; vt Shark! 1983), in which a prehistoric shark, 200 feet long, is finally killed after much turmoil. [JC]
Mutants and Masterminds
Role Playing Game (2002). Green Ronin Publishing (GRP). Designed by Steve Kenson. / Mutants and Masterminds is a generic Superhero RPG, a descendant of Champions (1981). While the system is based on d20 (2000), significant changes have been made to adapt the rules ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...