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Wednesday 20 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 18 May 2026
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Peck, Richard E
(1936- ) US author and academic and university administrator, an active critic of both literature in general and sf in particular. He began publishing sf with "In Alien Waters" in Venture for November 1969. His sf novel, Final Solution (1973), is an amusing but grim tale in which a US academic is sent fifty years into the future (through Cryonics) to find universities and ...
Levin, Ira
(1929-2007) US playwright and author whose first book, A Kiss Before Dying (1953), is an extremely impressive chiller. He is best known for the horror tale Rosemary's Baby (1967), in which the Devil impregnates a young woman; the book was filmed by Roman Polanski as Rosemary's Baby (1968); the sequel, Son of Rosemary (1997), is weak. Levin moved into sf proper with This Perfect Day (1970), a ...
Hall, Hal W
(1941- ) US bibliographer, Special Formats Librarian at Texas A & M University Library until his retirement in August 2010. His useful series of Bibliographies began with his SFBRI/Science Fiction Book Review Index, starting with SFBRI: Science Fiction Book Review Index, Volume 1, 1970 (1971 chap), with an annual continuation published in each succeeding year up to ...
Barth, John
(1930-2024) US academic and author, one of the central fabulists (see Fabulation) of his generation of writers, noted for a sometimes relentless experimentalism, an inability or disinclination to seize upon the moment of story he famously articulated in "The Literature of Exhaustion" (August 1967 The Atlantic), where postmodern (see Postmodernism and SF) writers are presented as miming the genuine stories before ...
Fitch, Thomas
(1838-1923) US politician, apparently inconspicuous, lawyer, newspaper editor, and author of Better Days; Or, a Millionaire of To-Morrow (1891) with his wife Anna M Fitch; it is a Utopia told from a conservative point of view. [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 ...