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Tuesday 21 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 20 July 2026
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Godber, Noël
(1881-1953) UK author, in active service during World War One, of several light novels, the first of which, Amazing Spectacles (1931), boasts some sf content: the Invention of a pair of spectacles that allow its wearer to see through clothing, to some erotic effect. [JC]
Pollack, Frederick
(1945- ) US university teacher and poet, best known in the latter capacity for his two book-length narrative poems (see Poetry): The Adventure (1986) is an Afterlife fantasy [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]; Happiness (1998) is set in an Alternate World, created (perhaps advertently) by Stephen ...
Crandall, Reed
(1917-1982) US illustrator best known for his work in Comics and, latterly, for a series of Edgar Rice Burroughs illustrations done in the early 1960s for Canaveral Press (see Richard A Lupoff). Crandall received his formal art education at Cleveland School of Art and at New York's Arts Students League. Even before graduating from the former, where he'd majored in ...
Setlowe, Richard
(1933-2022) US naval officer and author whose first novel, The Brink (1976), though not fantastic, explores the complex events (and paranoias) that might lead the world to the verge of World War Three. Of more direct sf interest is The Experiment (1980), a Near Future tale in which a man terminally ill with lung cancer (see Medicine) is given a chance to live through ...
Toyota Aritsune
(1938-2023) Japanese author and screenwriter, sometimes romanized in error as Aritsune Toyoda, intimately connected to the world of Anime and early Fandom in Japan, both as a participant and chronicler of its history. Toyota initially undertook medical studies on the assumption that he would to take his elder brother's place as the head of the family healthcare business. However, on being released from his ...
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 ...