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Monday 16 February 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 16 February 2026
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Halsbury, Earl of
Working name and title of UK barrister and author Hardinge Goulburn Giffard (1880-1943), Second Earl of Halsbury; his father, Hardinge Stanley Giffard (1823-1921), the first earl, was British Lord Chancellor for seventeen years at the end of the nineteenth century; Giffard was in active service during World War One. His Future War novel in the form of a Scientific Romance, 1944 ...
Riley, Brett
(1970- ) US teacher and author whose first novel Comanche (2020), is a Western involving the century-old ghost of a gunslinger. His sf tale, Lord of Order (2021), set in a post-Technology Ruined Earth version of a balkanized America, confronts the "Lord of Order" of New Orleans with a crisis of survival. [JC]
Lermina, Jules
(1839-1915) French journalist and author, who sometimes wrote as William Cobb (usually for work set in America), active from 1859, suffering arrest for his opposition to the Second Empire of Napoleon III; in the 1880s, he became honorary president of a contorted dynastic descendant of the Theosophical Society (see Theosophy); his novels include two nonfantastic sequels to Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo ...
International Fantasy Award
UK-based Award, made annually from 1951 to 1955 and finally in 1957. The idea came from four UK enthusiasts: John Beynon Harris (John Wyndham), Frank Cooper, G Ken Chapman and Leslie Flood. The International Fantasy Awards were presented to the authors of the best fantasy or sf book of the year, with a second category for the best nonfiction book likely to be of interest to sf readers; the nonfiction ...
Delgado, Ronald
(1980- ) Venezuelan physicist and author of short Hard SF stories. His narratives alternate between hard sf and erotic sf. His story "1000101" won the third prize in I Concurso de Relatos Eróticos: Sexo Para Leer by Revista Urbe Bikini in 2007 and appeared in Revista Urbe Bikini: Sexo a 62 Manos. Antología (anth 2007). In this story he portrays the utilization of ...
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 ...