SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 15 August 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 10 August 2026
Sponsor of the day: David Cowhig
Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
Stark, Raymond
(1919-1983) US author who wrote detective stories as by John Norwood, and in whose Crossroads to Nowhere (1956) an anarchist unsuccessfully confronts an urban Near Future dictatorship before escaping into the wilds, where his kind may survive, and perhaps build a Utopia. [JC]
Laney, Francis T
(1914-1958) US fan, author, critic and Fanzine publisher whose publication of greatest genre significance was The Acolyte (14 issues 1942-1946), an Amateur Magazine centred on H P Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos. A resulting spinoff was Howard Philips Lovecraft (1890-1937): A Tentative Bibliography (1943 ...
Indiana, Rita
(1977- ) Dominican singer-songwriter and author, who is of sf interest for her third novel, La mucama de Omicunlé ["Omicunlés Maid"] (2015; trans by Achy Obejas as Tentacle 2018), set initially in 2037, in a Near Future Dominican Republic devastated by Climate Change and other Disasters. The protagonist Acilde, who is the Dominican ...
Rewolinski, Leah
(1954- ) US author of the Star Wreck series of Parodies set in the Star Trek universe, structured so that sets of characters from different sub-series share (in a sense) the same Spaceship. Much of the humour is extremely broad, beginning with spoof alterations of individual names – Captain James T Smirk and Captain Jean-Lucy Ricardo being typical – and proceeding ...
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 ...