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Sunday 12 July 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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Wilbrandt, Adolf
(1837-1911) German theatre director and author whose possible relationship to Conrad Wilbrandt is undetermined; his Fridolins heimliche Ehe (1875; trans Clara Bell as Fridolin's Secret Marriage 1884), based on the life of the art historian Friedrich Eggers (181-1872), may be the first avowedly gay novel published in Germany. Of sf interest is Die Osterinsel (1894; trans A S Rapaport as ...
FAAn Awards
Short, partly acronymic name for the Fan (or Fanzine) Activity Achievement Awards first presented in 1975 for 1974 activity in Fandom, principally in Fanzines, and chosen by popular vote, initially with a small voting fee. The original categories were for best single issue of a fanzine, best fan writer, best fan editor, best fan artist – subdivided into serious and humorous categories – and best LoC ...
Verne, Michel
(1861-1925) French author, son of Jules Verne, with whose late and posthumous career he is almost exclusively associated [for discussion see entry for his father], and three of whose posthumous novels he either wrote entirely or entirely recomposed. They are L'Agence Thompson and C° (17 October-25 December 1907 Le Journal; 1907 2vols) as by Jules Verne, Les Naufragés du "Jonathan" (26 July-17 ...
Phillpotts, Eden
(1862-1960) Indian-born author, in UK from 1865, known mainly for his work outside the sf field (see Mainstream Writers of SF), primarily the Dartmoor series of regional novels; however, his first known publication, "Original Poem" (1880 Thespis), was about a Witches's Sabbath. Over his long career (see Longevity in Writers) he was extremely prolific, publishing about 250 books and plays, ...
Schorer, Mark
(1908-1977) US author and academic, little associated with the literatures of the fantastic except for some stories with August Derleth, with whom he shared a birth city as well as attendance at the University of Wisconsin, where they wrote sf like "Riders in the Sky" (May 1928 Weird Tales), about Moon dwellers who come down to Earth to eat folk. Some of their later work was assembled as ...
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 ...