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Thursday 10 July 2025
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 7 July 2025
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Tall, Stephen
Pseudonym of US biology professor and author Compton Newby Crook (1908-1981), who began his writing career under various undisclosed pseudonyms in the 1930s; none of this early work, which has not been satisfactorily traced, seems to have been sf, which he began publishing as Tall with "The Lights on Precipice Peak" in Galaxy for October 1955. He did not begin to be active in the field until more than a decade later, becoming known initially for the Stardust ...
Cockcroft, T G L
(1926-2013) New Zealand fan and bibliographer, in employment with IBM from the pre-electronic punched-card era. In spite of his relative isolation in New Zealand, he was a regular Fanzine contributor and corresponded with Fandom worldwide from an early age. He had letters published in Amazing Stories in the mid-1940s, but his main contributions to the genre were detailed bibliographies, in particular ...
Davidson, John
(1857-1909) Scottish schoolteacher, poet, playwright and author, best known in the first capacity for his Fleet Street Eclogues (coll 1893 chap); though not specifically fantastic, his intensely urban poetry, much of which focuses on science and technology from an almost mystical point of view, had a shaping influence now forgotten. Some tales, like Perfervid: The Career of Ninian Jamieson (1890), contain unfocused elements of the fantastic, partly through spoof ...
Allan, Angus P
(1936-2007) UK comic strip writer, magazine editor and author of two novel Ties; also credited as Angus Allan. Thunderbirds Are Go (1966) novelizes the Thunderbirds film Thunderbirds Are Go (1966); Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future (1977) is a mediocre tie to the famous Eagle space-adventure Comic strip ...
Hoche, Jules
(1859-1926) French author whose works seem to divide fairly equally between fiction and nonfiction. Several of his novels are sf, including Le Faiseur d'Hommes et sa Formule (1906; trans Brian Stableford as The Maker of Men and His Formula 2015), a tale clearly influence by H G Wells's The Island of Dr Moreau (1896), though the eponymous Mad Scientist ...
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 ...