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Tuesday 8 July 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.
Site updated on 7 July 2025
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Leinster, Murray
Pseudonym – pronounced "Lenster" as in the Irish province of Leinster – under which US author William Fitzgerald Jenkins (1896-1975) was best known in the sf field, and under which he wrote almost all his work in the genre; the exceptions were a few novels as Jenkins [see below] and some stories in magazines, mainly those in the Bud Gregory series as by William Fitzgerald, plus a small number as by Will Jenkins or Will F Jenkins. One of the very few authors of American ...
Pfeil, Fred
Working name of US academic and author John Frederick Pfeil (1949-2005), whose sf novel, Goodman 2020 (1986), portrays in a superbly suffocating present tense the Dystopian corporate USA of 2020 CE, where all power has fallen into the hands of priest-like businessmen. The most powerful of these hires Goodman in the role of "professional friend", to give him moments of human society, but Goodman eventually kills him, escapes into the barrios (and the ...
Martin, Nettie Parrish
(1840-1915) US author of Indian Legends of Early Days (coll 1905), where she renders traditional Indian tales into English verse. A Pilgrim's Progress in Other Worlds: Recounting the Wonderful Adventures of Ulysum Storries and his Discovery of the Lost Star "Eden" (1908) is an sf novel whose protagonist, the inventor (see Invention) of a bird-like flying machine powered by electricity and capable of ...
Carrington, Grant
(1938- ) US computer programmer, singer-songwriter and author who began publishing sf with "Night-Eyed Prayer" in Amazing for May 1971, though his later "After You've Stood on the Log at the Center of the Universe, What is There Left To Do?" (April 1974 Amazing) was more notable. With Thomas F Monteleone he wrote a play, U.F.O.! (performed 1979 Sandy Springs, Maryland), ...
Lightning Comics
US Comic (1940-1942). Ace Magazines. 10 issues. Artists include Harry Anderson, Jack Binder, Red Holmdale and Jim Mooney. Script writers include Maurice Gutwirth, Cliff Howe and Mark Schneider. Each issue has 68 pages, usually with seven long strips and one short text story, plus occasional short strips or text pieces as filler. / Lightning Comics was a retitling of Sure-Fire Comics, which had 4 issues in 1940 (the ...
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 ...