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Saturday 12 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.
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Burdick, Eugene L
(1918-1965) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Log the Man Dead" in Argosy for May 1953, and who was the author of several extremely popular novels, both alone and in collaboration. Of his Near Future sf novels, the best-known remains Fail-Safe (13-27 October 1962 Saturday Evening Post; 1962) with Harvey Wheeler, ...
Bramah, Ernest
Working name of UK author Ernest Brammah Smith (1868-1942) for all his writing; he is best-known for two series, the Max Carrados sequence [see Checklist below] about a blind detective, all of whose Perceptions (except of course sight) are enormously enhanced by rigorous training; and a series of tales in which the Chinese Kai Lung displays his skills as a professional story-teller – often, like Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights, to ...
Cantor, Jay
(1948- ) US academic and author whose first novel, Krazy Kat: A Novel in Five Panels (1988), Equipoisally implants two characters from the Comic strip Krazy Kat (1916-1944) by George Herriman (1880-1944) – the eponymous Cat and Ignatz Mouse – into a "real-world" analogue of the surrealized Coconino County, Arizona, where the comic is set. Caught in this ...
Shriver, Lionel
Working name of US journalist and author Ann Margaret Shriver (1957- ), in London for several years; among her earlier nonfantastic novels the best known is We Need to Talk about Kevin (2003), about a teenage mass-murderer. The Post-Birthday World (2007) uses narrative rather than sf devices to contrast the parallel timelines of a woman's relationships with two alternative partners, somewhat in the manner of the film Sliding Doors ...
Lady and the Monster, The
Film (1944). Republic Pictures. Produced and directed by George Sherman. Written by Dane Lussier, Frederick Kohner, based on Donovan's Brain (1943) by Curt Siodmak. Cast includes Richard Arlen, Sidney Blackmer, Vera Ralston and Erich von Stroheim. 86 minutes. Black and white. / This is the first of the three film versions of Siodmak's novel; the others are Donovan's Brain (1953) and ...
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 ...