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Thursday 11 December 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.
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Merrill, Harrison R
(1884-1938) US poet, academic and author of Ko-i-Chito: The Indian Boy (1937), a tale for children set in what would become Utah, mixing together Lost Race and Prehistoric SF influences. [JC]
O'Neill, John
(1964- ) Canadian author and editor, qualified in engineering and a former US software company manager, who was an editor at SF Site 1997-1999, before leaving to edit the new genre site Black Gate from late 2000 (Spring 2001 issue). He began publishing fiction of genre interest with "The Haunting of Cold Harbour" in Black Gate for Winter 2002, as by Todd McAulty. He is of sf ...
Swem, Charles Lee
(1893-1956) US journalist and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Mississippi Bearcat" in All-Story Weekly (see The All-Story) for 17 January 1920. He is of some sf interest for Werewolf (1928) (see Werewolves) which depicts the transformation of a normal human into a Supernatural Creature, seemingly through the use of a mysterious ...
Ransmayr, Christoph
(1954- ) Austrian editor and author, active from the late 1970s, mostly in Ireland 1994-2006. His first novel, Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis (1984; trans John E Woods as The Terrors of Ice and Darkness 1991) verges upon but does not engage with the aura of Fantastika that tends to influence novels set in unexplored Arctic regions. His second, Die letzte Welt ...
Douglas, Norman
(1868-1952) Austrian-born author, in UK from childhood, of superb meditative travel books and some fiction, his best-known novel being South Wind (1917 2vols). Unprofessional Tales (coll 1901) with his wife, Elizabeth Louisa Theobaldina Fitzgibbon (1876-1916), writing together as by Normyx, consists mainly of fantasies;one of the stories here assembled was revised, as by Douglas alone, as Nerinda (1929). In two novels of his late maturity he dramatized ...
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 ...