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Friday 18 September 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 14 September 2026
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Carpenter, John
(1948- ) US film-maker. At USC Film School Carpenter collaborated with writer-actor-director Dan O'Bannon on Dark Star (1974), a student effort expanded successfully into a feature that attracted attention for its Absurdist humour and classical suspense, following the adventures of a Spaceship crewed by near-insane astronauts and dangerously unstable sentient bombs. That ...
Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle
US Comic strip created by Fletcher Hanks under the pseudonym Barclay Flagg. First appeared in Jungle Comics #2 (February 1940); last appearance in issue #51 (March 1944). The stories can be divided into three styles: original (issues #2-#15); jungle girl (#16-#26) and Egyptian queen (#27-#51) (see Ancient Egypt in SF). The first period, by some considerable margin, is the most interesting. / The original Fantomah's ...
British Fantasy Society
1. The first British Fantasy Society was sf-based and operated from 1942 to 1946. It was a precursor of the British Science Fiction Association founded in 1958: see this entry for further details. The Society's British Fantasy Society Bulletin (which see) was circulated with Futurian War Digest. / links / ...
Lea, Homer
(1876-1912) US soldier and author, handicapped from early youth by an accident which caused him to become a hunchback less than five feet tall, and who died from the effects of a stroke. In 1899 he became involved in the Boxer Rebellion in China, and was involved in Chinese politics until his death, and became a noted campaigner against the threat of imperial Japan, notably in the Yellow Peril propaganda piece, The Valor of Ignorance (1909), in ...
Shadow of Memories
Videogame (2001; vt Shadow of Destiny). Konami. Designed by Junko Kawano. Platforms: PS2 (2001); Win, XBox (2002); PSP (2009). / Shadow of Memories is a highly atmospheric graphical Adventure with an unusual plot; the player must solve the mystery of their own murder. The display is fully three-dimensional, and the gameplay revolves around puzzle solution and conversation with computer ...
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 ...