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Thursday 15 May 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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Fabian, Stephen E
(1930-2025) American artist, sometimes credited as Steve Fabian or simply Fabian. The self-trained Fabian first worked as an electronic engineer, but he began contributing art to Fanzines in the late 1960s and became a full-time professional artist in 1973. He did a number of covers and interior art for SF Magazines, mostly Amazing, Fantastic, and ...
Monsterscene
Letter-size saddle-stapled Cinema magazine printed on slick paper. Publisher: Gogos Entertainment. Editor: Stephen D Smith. Eleven issues 1992 to 1997; publication was nominally quarterly but in fact erratic. / Acclaimed illustrator Gogos, who had gained considerable renown during the 1960s for his covers for Famous Monsters of Filmland, here tried his hand at a similar ...
Leonard, George
(1946- ) US academic and author whose novels include Beyond Control (1975), an effective Horror in SF tale set in a big-City slum hospital where DNA experimentation (see Genetic Engineering) on pregnant underclass women leads to the birth of highly unpleasant Monsters; complicit politicians are of course chiefly concerned to ...
Smith, William Hawley
(1845-1922) US educator and author whose first novel, The Evolution of "Dodd," in His Struggle for the Survival of the Fittest in Himself: Tracing his Chances, his Changes, and How He Came Out (1884) [see Checklist for vt and other data], examines Social Darwinism cursorily. Of sf interest is very Near Future The Promoters: A Novel without a Woman (1904), whose shady protagonists hope to apply to ...
Horace, Lillian Jones
(1880-1965) US teacher and author whose Five Generations Hence (1916) as Mrs Lillian B Jones is the first Utopia published by a Black woman in America. Its protagonist, devastated by an initial true vision of the conditions of life for Blacks in contemporary America, has a second vision of life five generations hence in Africa, of a country where all are equal. She then dedicates herself to bringing this vision about. [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 ...