SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 12 May 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 11 May 2026
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Suzuki Kōji
(1957-2026) Japanese author and essayist, largely known in English through the Cinema adaptations of several of his books, the international success of which obscured his wide-ranging domestic output. His horror and Equipoisal fiction proceeded in tandem with a wide array (not listed here) of books on young fatherhood and occasional works on motorcycle travel. He was also the translator of Simon Brett's ...
Van der Graaf Generator
UK prog-rock band comprising Peter Hammill, Hugh Robert Banton (1949- ) and Guy Evans (1947- ). Highly regarded in the narrow world of English prog, the group released a series of musically soursweet and ornately complex albums whose obscure lyrics trace out fantastical versions of ordinary life that shade, often, into a more structured fabulation. The first album, The Aerosol Grey Machine (1969), ...
Dissevelt, Tom
(1921-1989) Dutch instrumentalist and composer, working on the borderlands between electronic, jazz and pop. His early releases were moderately ground-breaking in terms of the sonic palette he created from often home-built electronic instruments. His debut album Song of the Second Moon (1957) which contained the remarkable "Sonik Re-entry", a genuinely extraordinary piece of music half a century ahead of its time. His biggest success came with Fantasy in Orbit ...
Willits, Malcolm
(1934-2019) US film director, bookseller, editor and author, who began to publish work of genre interest with "To Not Be Worthy" in Destiny for Winter 1950, along with several other early stories in that journal (see Amateur Magazine), which he himself co-edited with Jim Bradley. He is of more direct sf interest for The Wonderful Edison Time Machine: A Celebration of Life (1999), a Young Adult ...
Jackson, Geo Russell
(circa 1834-1892) Scottish-born journalist, songwriter and author, in the US from an early age; his Young Adult novel, Ambregris Island; Or, the New El Dorado (1882), flirts enticingly with the Lost Race tale – the eponymous Island contains huge quantities of ambergris and an unknown tribe – and boasts a sea serpent (see Monsters). [JC]
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 ...