SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 20 August 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 17 August 2026
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Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld (see Flat Earth) resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the ...
Martini, Virgilio
(1903-1986) Italian author whose sf novel, Il monde senza donne: Romanzo (1936 as by Virgilio Letrusco; trans Emile Capouya as The World Without Women 1971), enjoyed (at least in hindsight) the honour of being banned by Mussolini. The tale depicts the experiences of the last woman on earth (see Feminism; Gender; Women in SF), after a homosexual plot to free the world of women ...
Siegel, Richard
(1955-2018) US illustrator, Comics artist, filmmaker and author whose one sf novel is Alien Plague (1979) as by Stephard Noir, in which a medical Disaster is sourced to the Outer Planets. Under his own name, he is best known for an sf Satire framed as a photo-documentary, ...
BlöödHag
US death metal/grindcore band based in Seattle, Washington, which unusually focused on sf, fantasy and horror authors in short songs homaging and providing some sketchy bio-bibliographical information on their subjects; in live performances they would often throw books at the audience. The original 1996 band members were Jeff McNulty (guitar), Jake Stratton (vocals), Zachary Orgel (bass) and a drum machine subsequently replaced by Rod Karp (drums) and later by Brent Carpenter (drums). Their ...
Rollo, William
(? - ) UK author of The Big Wheel (1984), a Near Future Technothriller set in near space, where the Big Wheel Space Station is a US strategic command centre in geosynchronous orbit, rivalled by the USSR's Astrogorodok on the far side of Earth. Escalating ecological Disaster (driven chiefly by ...
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 ...