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Thursday 13 August 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.
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Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
Frankau, Pamela
(1908-1967) UK author who began publishing novels in 1927; daughter of Gilbert Frankau and his first wife Dorothea; known mainly for her work outside the sf field. Frankau's turbulent life was in some aspects interestingly parallel to that of James Tiptree Jr, though she did not disguise her identity. Several of her novels, such as The Bridge (1957), are fantasy; The Offshore Light (1952; ...
Madden, Samuel
(1686-1765) Irish clergyman and author, nicknamed Premium Madden for his philanthropical work, whose Proto SF novel, Memoirs of the Twentieth Century: Being Original Letters of State Under George the Sixth [for full subtitle see Checklist] (1733) anonymous, takes as usual in eighteenth-century works the theoretical platform of the future as an enabling device to comment – in Madden's case with sufficient Satirical ...
Pier, Garrett Chatfield
(1875-1943) UK-born US author of Hanit the Enchantress (1921), in which a Yale expedition to Egypt discovers what seems to be a Lost World, into the heart of which the lead of the expedition plunges by Timeslip, where he falls in love with the spitting image of the twentieth century woman to whom he is betrothed. [JC]
Berington, Simon
(1680-1755) UK author, apparently a Catholic priest, the author for reasons only partly didactic of one of the first Lost World novels in the literature; it is probably the first to suggest that the lost race in question may be Ancient Egyptians (see Ancient Egypt in SF). Published anonymously, the book is described on the title page as a translation from the Italian. Its title, which is long, constitutes a synopsis: ...
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 ...