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Monday 12 October 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.
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Edwards, Malcolm
(1949-2026) UK editor, critic and publisher, educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in anthropology. Active in UK sf Fandom in the 1970s and early 1980s, he published the first complete text of James Blish's "The Science in Science Fiction" (May 1951-May 1952 Science Fiction Quarterly) in his Fanzine Quicksilver #2 in 1971; edited the ...
McAllister, Don
(1934- ) US author of Cloud World (1986), an sf novel set on an inhabited Jupiter and three of its moons. [JC]
Newcomb, Cyrus F
(1831-1905) US author presumed to have written The Book of Algoonah: Being a Concise Account of the History of the Early People of the Continent of America, Known as Mound Builders (1884) anonymous, a Prehistoric SF tale in which America is colonized by Assyrians and other explorers from the Middle-East; their culture boasts some elements of advanced science and Technology, but is eventually submerged. There has ...
Richardson, Benjamin Ward
(1828-1896) UK physician and author, eminent in the former capacity, for which he was knighted in 1893. He published and edited many medical studies, and pioneered the development of safe anaesthetics; an offshoot of these activities was the nonfictional Hygeia: A City of Health (1876), which describes a Utopia whose hygiene is spotless. As an author of fiction, he is some sf interest for The Son of a Star: A Romance of the Second Century ...
Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr
(1922-2007) US author, who signed his name simply Kurt Vonnegut (without the Jr) after 1976. He was a Prisoner of War near the end of World War Two in Dresden from December 1944 to May 1945, surviving the saturation bombing of the city and the subsequent firestorm, basing his most successful novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) [see below] on his experience; he was awarded a Purple Heart on his return to America, normally given to those wounded in ...
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 ...