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Thursday 12 March 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.
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Betchov, Robert
(1919-1996) American academic and author, whose The Year of the Spiatnik: A Novel (1975) describes Future War and its guardedly hopeful outcome. [JC]
Sweterlitsch, Tom
(? - ) US author who also signs his name Thomas Sweterlitsch; he began to publish work of genre interest with "The Disposable Man" in Something Wicked SF and Horror Magazine for February 2012, a Satire on post 9/11 American Politics. Tomorrow and Tomorrow (2015) is set mostly in a Virtual Reality Keep embedded in the ...
James, Dolan
(? - ) US author of a mildly pornographic sf novel, Space Swappers (1970; vt Solar System Swingers 1992 as by Dodie St James), in which two male "swingers", frustrated by exiguous Sex on Earth, go to Mars where green-skinned humanoid females are easy prey. No hard data has surfaced about the latter title. [JC]
Hubschman, Thomas
(1941- ) US author of two Space Opera adventures, Alpha-II (dated 1979 but 1980) and Space Ark (1981); the latter attempts, with some ambition, to conflate complex Apes as Human issues on a threatened Earth some time in the future, but tends to melodramatics that, in the light of the New Space Opera now ascendant, seem simplistic. [JC]
Acker, Kathy
(1947-1997) US playwright and author born Karen Alexander, who may never have met her biological father Harry Lehman Jr; she went as Kathy from early childhood, and took the surname of her first husband, Robert Acker, on ther marriage in 1966. She lived in the UK off and on for many years. Acker's apocalyptic sense of the latter-day world is conveyed in works whose tortured absurdity (see Fabulation) sometimes catches the reader by surprise, or transfixes 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 ...