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Thursday 16 July 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 14 July 2026
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Catling, Brian
(1948-2022) UK academic, film maker, sculptor, performance artist, poet and author, active from the 1970s; he served as Professor of fine art at Ruskin School of Art, Oxford, from 1991, emeritus from 2017. Much of his output in the various but interconnected fields to which he contributed may be very roughly understood in terms of Fantastika, as this term is used in this encyclopedia. Very specifically, his first novel, The Vorrh (2012), which ...
Covina, Gina
(1952- ) US author on various topics, including Ecology issues, and author of a Near Future Disaster novel, The City of Hermits (1983), which is set in California after a great earthquake; there are hopes, subsequently, of a Utopian outcome. [JC]
Dorer, Frances
(1958-2010) Pseudonym of Frances Catherine Paterson, US author, always with her mother Nancy Paterson (1922-2010), the latter writing under her maiden name Nancy Dorer. They began to publish work of genre interest with When Next I Wake (dated 1978 but 1979) as by Frank Dorn, their most ambitious effort being the Eagle sequence of sf adventures, all dated 1979 but published 1980, comprising By Daybreak the Eagle (1980), Wings of the Eagle (1980) ...
Wheeler, Francis
(1904-1969) UK author, mostly of thrillers, though as Francis Leslie Wheeler he published several volumes of popular Christian theology. His Sylvanian Adventure (1939) has some sf interest as a Ruritanian tale set in a hidden, heavily forested kingdom dangerously close to the outbreak of World War Two. [JC]
Piper, H Beam
(1904-1964) US author and gun collector, employed as a security man on the Pennsylvania Railroad until made redundant in the mid-1950s. Though he wrote for other genres, he is best remembered for his sf, much of which appeared in Astounding from 1947, when he began with "Time and Time Again" (April 1947 Astounding). Though he shared John W Campbell Jr's views on various fields of interest, including ...
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 ...