SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 12 March 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 9 March 2026
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Defontenay, C I
(1819-1856) French physician – he has been described as the inventor of plastic surgery – and author whose Star, ou Ψ de Cassiopée: histoire merveilleuse de l'un des mondes de l'espace, nature singulière, coutumes, voyages, littérature starienne, poèmes et comédies traduits du starien (1854; trans P J Sokolowski as Star (Psi Cassiopeia) 1975 US, with intro by Pierre Versins) ...
Hassler, Donald M
(1937- ) US academic and scholar of sf, based at Kent State University, Ohio, from 1965 until his retirement in 2014. Hassler was President of the Science Fiction Research Association 1985-1986, and became managing editor of the journal Extrapolation with the Summer 1986 issue, co-editor with the Winter 1987 issue, and editor with the Spring 1990 issue, ending his active ...
Hadley, Arthur T
(1924-2015) US journalist and author; in his Near Future Satire, The Joy Wagon (1958), a Robot with a Computer brain known as Minivac runs for President in a sharply comic send-up of the US electoral system, and almost wins. Hadley should not be confused with his grandfather, the nonfiction writer and academic Arthur Twining Hadley (1856-1930) [JC] ...
Would that It Were
US professional Online Magazine published by Small Potatoes Press, and produced and edited by Don Muchow, Dallas, Texas. 18 quarterly issues, April/June 2000 to October/December 2004, missing only July/September 2004. It paid between 3¢ and 5¢ a word, but it was not until 2010 that Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America recognized its status as a professional market. It was a magazine of historical science fiction, ...
Broderick, Damien
(1944-2025) Australian author, editor and critic; he had a PhD in the semiotics of fiction, science and sf with special reference to the work of Samuel R Delany. He edited four anthologies of Australian sf: The Zeitgeist Machine (anth 1977), Strange Attractors (anth 1985), Matilda at the Speed of Light (anth 1988) and Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (anth ...
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 ...