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Thursday 24 April 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.
Site updated on 21 April 2025
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Broderick, Damien
(1944-2025) Australian author, editor and critic; he had a PhD in the semiotics of fiction, science and sf with special reference to the work of Samuel R Delany. He edited four anthologies of Australian sf: The Zeitgeist Machine (anth 1977), Strange Attractors (anth 1985), Matilda at the Speed of Light (anth 1988) and Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (anth ...
Wells's Law
Term used in this encyclopedia for the principle, formulated by H G Wells, that an sf or fantasy story should contain only a single extraordinary assumption. James Blish paraphrases it in More Issues at Hand: Critical Studies in Contemporary Science Fiction (coll 1970) as by William Atheling Jr, speaking of Wells's "hard rule ... that only a single fantastic assumption was admissible per story, and must thereafter be ...
Kramer, Kathryn
(1945- ) US academic and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "The New Ice Age" for Chomo-Uri in 1980; her first novel, A Handbook for Visitors from Outer Space (1984), is set in an unspecified but Near Future land – which turns out to be New Jersey – in a state of constant War with an unknown enemy. Kramer is not an alternate spelling for Kathryn ...
Sutherland, John
(1938- ) UK academic, newspaper columnist and author; Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College, London. He began to publish work of genre interest with "The Struldbrugg Reaction" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for July 1964; a second story appeared in the following year in Worlds of Tomorrow. / A specialist in Victorian and ...
Oberth, Hermann
(1894-1989) Austro-Hungarian born German engineer and physicist, in active service during World War One; in his early years much influenced by the work of Jules Verne. He is of great importance in the theory and development of Rocket science from as early as 1917, and his (rejected) doctoral thesis – Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen ["The Rocket into Interplanetary Space"] ...
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 ...