SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 22 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 18 February 2026
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Editorial Practices: Chinese and Japanese Names
China / Chinese names are given in the traditional order, with surname first; we do not use commas to separate surnames from "first" names in Chinese entry titles because the surname naturally occurs at the front. Romanization is standard Pinyin, without tone marks, which this encyclopedia employs not only for figures from the People's Republic of China, but also from Taiwan, Singapore and the Chinese diaspora. Hence, the likes of ...
Marriott, Crittenden
(1867-1932) US author, a prolific contributor to magazines during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The Isle of Dead Ships (January-April 1909 The Scrap Book; 1909; vt The Isle of Lost Ships 1930), twice filmed as The Isle of Lost Ships (1923 and 1929), focuses on a well-organized Lost Race occupying a network of ancient ships at the heart of the Sargasso Sea; the ...
Calder, Ritchie
(1906-1982) Scottish journalist, academic and author, active from 1922. He is of relevance to sf for his life-time advocacy of the science-driven creation of a peaceful future (see Futures Studies), from a left standpoint which, always moderate, never led him into any of the twentieth-century ideological bearpits into which the left (and the right) toppled so grimly and so often. His first book, The Birth of the Future (1934), is significant ...
Midnight Marquee
US letter-size saddle-stapled Media Magazine. Publisher: Gary J Svehla and Susan Svehla as Midnight Marquee Press, Incorporated. Editors: Gary J Svehla and Susan Svehla. 1963-current. The publication schedule, nominally three times per year, is highly irregular. / Driven by his great enthusiasm for Famous Monsters of Filmland, the then very young Gary Svehla (1950- ) launched this magazine ...
Clements, David
(? - ) Author of whom it is known only that his sole sf novel, for Robert Hale Limited, is The Backwater Man (1979). [DRL]
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 ...