SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 10 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 4 May 2026
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Conway, Gerard F
(1952-2026) US author informally known as Gerry Conway who began his career in Comics, writing some non-fantastic scripts for Marvel Comics, and editing the short-lived 1973 weird fiction magazine The Haunt of Horror and writing for the 1973-1975 anthology Comic Worlds Unknown. He also worked extensively for ...
Frame, Janet
(1924-2004) New Zealand author, best known for her non-fantastic work; some of her stories – especially those assembled in Snowman, Snowman: Fables and Fantasies (coll 1963) and You Are Now Entering the Human Heart (coll 1983) – are fantasy. The most intense of her several novels explore the world through the telling Perceptions of protagonists categorized as psychiatrically disturbed, situations frequently described in ...
Lensman [series]
Influential Space Opera series created by E E Smith (whom see for full discussion). Other authors of stories set in the Lensman universe are William Ellern, Hideyuki Furuhashi and David Kyle, the last focusing on the three Alien allies of the main series hero Kim Kinnison who like him ...
Space Habitats
The space habitat is a natural development from the concept of the manned Space Station (which see). Inevitably there is considerable overlap, with a broad and fuzzy dividing line between space stations which are primarily seen as way-stations or scientific observation posts, and space habitats whose occupants have come to regard them as home. J D Bernal's The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1929 chap) proposed ...
Kenyon, Ley
(1913-1990) UK designer, photographer and illustrator, active from the 1930s; after gaining the Distinguished Flying Cross as a rear-gunner while serving in World War Two, he was shot down on his 45th mission, and as a prisoner of war forged passports and other papers in preparation for the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III in 1944; in later life, he specialized in images of the underwater world, publishing several nonfiction books on the subject, the best ...
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 ...