SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 17 February 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 16 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Murphy, Brian
(1973- ) US editor (in healthcare publishing) and enthusiast of Robert E Howard's Conan character, of J R R Tolkien, and of Heroic Fantasy in general; active in various Fanzines and online venues since 2007. An early print appearance was the essay "The Unnatural City" in The Cimmerian for April 2008. He has published a ...
Halacy, D S, Jr
(1919-2002) US author, mostly of nonfiction studies in science and Futures Studies [see Checklist for selected titles]; of direct sf interest are Rocket Rescue (1968), an adventure in Near Future Space Flight, and Return from Luna (1969), which adds a Future War to the mix. [JC]
Stith, John E
(1947- ) US software engineering manager and author who began to publish sf with "Early Winter" in Fantastic for July 1979. His first novel, Scapescope (1984) – which is Hard SF like all his work – uses his work experience at the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Complex to extrapolate on the nature of a defense complex in that location two centuries hence. Memory Blank (1986) places a ...
Vader, John
(1919-2005) Australian author, in UK in the late 1960s and 1970s, most of whose work has been nonfiction, much of it dealing with military matters. His only sf novel, Battle of Sydney (1971), is an Alternate History of World War Two in which Australia is invaded by Japan; in the end the Invasion is unsuccessful. [JC]
Favole, Robert J
(1950- ) US author of two connected Time Travel tales for the Young Adult market, Through the Wormhole (2001) and Monday Redux (2003), each involving its young protagonist in a trip back through time to save friends and relatives from danger. [JC]
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 ...