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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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Skywald Publications
US magazine and Comics publisher which existed from 1970 to early 1975, founded by Sol Brodsky (1923-1984), and Israel Waldman. Brodsky was associated with Marvel Comics for the great majority of his career in various capacities. Skywald issued a short-lived series of colour comics which included Westerns, the Horror title The Heap about a swamp monster ...
Weldon, Fay
(1931-2023) UK Television and Radio scriptwriter, and author, active from the early 1960s; born Franklin Birkinshaw, granddaughter of Edgar Jepson and niece of Selwyn Jepson She began writing work of genre interest with "Angel, All Innocence" in The Thirteenth Ghost Book (anth 1977) edited by James Hale. Almost all of her work – with considerable ...
Lee, Thomas
(circa 1830-circa 1904) UK author, active in the late nineteenth century, identified by Darko Suvin in Victorian Science Fiction in the UK (1983) as a North London plasterer and publican, though it seems it may be his son, Henry Lee, who was a plasterer. Lee's sf novel, ...
Minor, John W
Pseudonym of US author George Lynde Catlin (1840-1896), who specialized in nonfiction, much of it devoted to various railways and railroads. "Bietigheim" (1886) as by John W Minor is a Future War tale set in 1890-1891 between the US and her allies and Germany and hers. Germany loses, and by 1910 republics – on the model of the United States of America – have replaced the old monarchies throughout Europe (see ...
Obruchev, Vladimir A
(1863-1956) Russian geologist, academician and author. Two of his novels, both early classics of Russian sf, have been translated: Plutoniia (1915; 1924; trans B Pearce as Plutonia 1957) and Zemlya Sannikova (1926; trans David Skvirsky as Sannikov Land 1955). Both are adventures after the style of Jules Verne, aimed at younger readers, and informatively crammed with geological and palaeontological data. The ...
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 ...