SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 19 February 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 18 February 2026
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Kenyon, Ley
(1913-1990) UK designer, photographer and illustrator, active from the 1930s; after gaining the Distinguished Flying Cross as a rear-gunner while serving in World War Two, he was shot down on his 45th mission, and as a prisoner of war forged passports and other papers in preparation for the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III in 1944; in later life, he specialized in images of the underwater world, publishing several nonfiction books on the subject, the best ...
Held, Serge
(1892-1969) Ukrainian-born French consulting engineer and author of La Mort du Fer (1931; trans Fletcher Pratt as "The Death of Iron" [September-December 1932 Wonder Stories]), a Disaster tale – a mysterious virus destroys all iron in the world – which leads to a confused collapse of civilization (see ...
Clark, Jan
(? - ) US author, mainly known for the two volumes of her Prodigy sequences of Space Operas comprising Prodigy (1997) and Earth Herald (1998), featuring Rieka Degahv, female captain of a military spaceship who becomes embroiled in an interstellar intrigue designed to topple a commonwealth of species, in which humans are present but do not dominate. The fast pace and claustrophobic ...
Coggins, Jack
(1911-2006) US illustrator of many subjects. Born in London of UK parents, he moved with his family as a child to Long Island. In due course he attended the Grand Central School of Art and the Art Students League, both in New York. During World War Two he was a war artist for Life magazine and others including Yank, The Army Weekly; from this was born the first of several collaborations with Fletcher Pratt, Fighting Ships of the U.S. Navy ...
Force Field
In sf Terminology – unlike Physics, where it has a different meaning – a force field (sometimes a force shield or energy screen) is usually an invisible protective sphere or wall of force. The term "force field" first seems to have been used in this sf sense in E E "Doc" Smith's Spacehounds of IPC (July-September 1931 Amazing; 1947). Throughout 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 ...