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Sunday 7 December 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.
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Terminology
Newcomers to sf are occasionally dismayed by its jargon. Certain concepts have become so useful in sf (and also in talking about it) that they tend to be referred to – especially by Genre-SF writers – in a kind of shorthand and without explanation. Many receive entries in this volume, sometimes brief (see Credits; FTL), sometimes detailed (see Androids; ...
Homer
(circa 800 BCE-circa 700 BCE) The most famous of early Greek poets, whether or not one or more individuals, or a guild of homers who recited poetry, and whose birth and death dates remain speculative; his or their birth and death may have occurred between the dates given above. Samuel Butler, in The Authoress of the Odyssey (1897), argued for female authorship of the Odyssey, and Robert ...
Skurzynski, Gloria
(1930- ) US author from the 1970s of fiction and nonfiction for Young Adult markets; in her first sf novel, Cyberstorm (1995), a young girl finds herself trapped in a Virtual Reality room meant to re-create a world of happy memories for its elderly owner; wrongness soon pervades the enclave. Skurzynski's Virtual War Chronologs sequence beginning with Virtual War (1997) ...
Cournos, John
(1881-1966) Working name, seemingly legalized, of Russian-born translator, anthologist, poet and author Igor Grigorievich Korshun, which Cournos preferred to render as Johann Gregorevich Korshun to accord more closely to his Ukrainian background; in US or UK from around 1891, in US from 1931. He is of some sf interest for London Under the Bolsheviks: A Londoner's Dream on Returning from Petrograd (1919 chap), which describes ...
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 ...