SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 13 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.
Site updated on 13 July 2026
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Kennedy, John
(1945-2009) US author, involved in American Fandom all his life, who began to publish work of genre interest with "Toward the Fullness of Fate" in Galaxy for July 1976. Later work was assembled in the two versions of Nova in a Bottle (coll 1992 chap; with differing contents, exp 2003 chap). It is a sign of the esteem in which he was held that the first version contained essays on Kennedy by Vance ...
Gordimer, Nadine
(1923-2014) South African author, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. From her long career – she began publishing short fiction in 1937 – one novel is of sf interest, July's People (1981), set in a disarrayed Near Future South Africa; a white family is rescued from danger by its Black servant. Like other Gordimer novels touching on the politics and future of apartheid, the book was banned by ...
Willmot, Eric
(1938-2014) Australian author whose Near Future sf novel, Below the Line (1991), describes the consequences of an Indonesian Invasion: Australia is broken into two Dystopias, as most Australians view this outcome, and run on Asian rules. The narrative itself expresses relatively little alarm – Willmot was of Aboriginal birth – and the ending is ...
Quinn, Daniel
(1935-2018) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with Dreamer (1988), which reads initially as a dark Fantasy, but whose protagonist is in fact a victim of Dream Hacking; he came to wide notice with Ishmael (1992), which won the first and only Turner Tomorrow Fellowship Award of $500,000, and was filmed as Instinct (1999) directed by Jon ...
Friedman, Michael Jan
(1955- ) US author, mostly notably of Ties to Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation and other Star Trek spinoffs, including the My Brother's Keeper trilogy comprising Star Trek: My Brother's Keeper: Constitution (1998), Star Trek: My Brother's Keeper: Republic (1998), Star Trek: My Brother's Keeper: Enterprise ...
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 ...