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Wednesday 9 July 2025
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 7 July 2025
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Shaver, Richard S
(1907-1975) US author, author of some sf stories (some under the House Names Paul Lohrman and Frank Patton) but now remembered almost exclusively for his hoax-like sequence of Shaver Mystery stories, presented as based on fact, published in Raymond A Palmer's Amazing Stories 1945-1947, beginning with "I Remember Lemuria" in ...
Collins, Gilbert
(1890-1960) UK author in various genres, in active service during World War One; his two Lost-World novels are of sf interest. The Valley of Eyes Unseen (1923) finds a Tibetan hidden valley inhabited by scientifically advanced descendants of Alexander the Great's Greeks, from whom the protagonist eventually escapes by purloining one of their Inventions, mechanical wings (see ...
Ross, Raymond George
(? - ) US author whose sf novel Beyond the Chains of Bondage (1964) is set in a Chinese-dominated future USA. [JC/DRL]
Conquest, Joan
(1883-1941) Pseudonym of UK author Mary Eliza Louise Cooke (Mrs Leonard Cooke), born Mary Eliza Gripper and also known as Sister Martin-Nicholson following her first, brief marriage in 1907 to Allen Martin Reuben Nicholson (1883-1915); she married Leonard Cooke in 1915. She is known for floridly euphemistic (though superficially daring) novels of high romance, typical of which are Leonie of the Jungle (1921), whose eponymous heroine escapes the ...
Sullivan, Robert
(1953- ) US journalist and author, most of whose work has been nonfiction, much of it associated with Life magazine, where he served as a senior editor for many years. Of sf interest are two spoof "nonfiction" studies, both elaborately arrayed with confabulated documentary evidence about their subject matters. The first, The Flight of the Reindeer: The True Story of Santa Claus and his Christmas Mission (1996), is constructed in part around a ...
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 ...