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Sunday 12 April 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 6 April 2026
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Sorokin, Vladimir
(1955- ) Russian artist, playwright and author, active since about 1972, though his first work to appear in English was Ochered' (1983; trans Sally Laird as The Queue 1988), a deadpan Satire on Soviet Russia; the text of this story, which is set in a gigantic unending queue, consists of nothing but lines of dialogue exchanged amongst dozens, maybe hundreds, of unidentified speakers, and so is even more stripped down ...
Rochelle, Warren
(1954- ) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "A Peaceful Heart" in Aboriginal Science Fiction for May-June 1989; the Changeling sequence, beginning with Harvest of Changelings (2007), is fantasy. Of sf interest is The Wild Boy (2001), an Invasion tale in which spacefaring Extraterrestrials turn Earth in a kind of ...
Blaine, Mahlon
(1894-1969) US illustrator, probably born Blain and adding the "e" later. He was a major figure in book Illustration before the Depression, which devastated his livelihood: although he continued to illustrate, much of his work was for non-mainstream publishers; towards the end of his life he returned to illustrate some Edgar Rice Burroughs reissues [see Checklist below]. Among books of genre interest that he illustrated ...
Theater Five
Radio series (1964-1965; vt Theatre-Five; vt Theater 5). ABC-Radio Network. Directors included Ted Bell, Harry Nelson and Warren Sommerville. Writers included Lillian Anderson, Sherman Dryer, Richard McCracken, Robert Newman, Saul Panitz, William N Robson and Lawrence Weinberg. Announcer and host: Fred Foy. 260 20-minute episodes, of which 256 episodes survive. / A late effort by ABC to revive US radio drama, ...
O'Neal, James
Pseudonym of US law officer and author James O Born (1960- ), who writes nonfantastic thrillers under his own name. As O'Neal, his Tom Wilner sequence, set in a partially uninhabitable Ruined Earth America after World War Three and associated Disasters, is of sf interest. In the first instalment, The Human Disguise (2009), the noir detective ...
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 ...