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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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Lambert, Verity
(1935-2007) UK Television producer who, as the first in that role (1963-1965) for Doctor Who (1963-current), had an immense influence on the show's shape and themes, which has lasted to the present day. At the time Lambert was the only female drama producer – and the youngest – at the BBC; she was appointed by the Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, who had developed the series (along with Donald Wilson and C E Webber). ...
Dold, Elliott
(1889-1957) US illustrator, son of noted psychiatrist William Elliott Dold (1856-1942) and younger brother of Douglas Dold. His birth year is often given as 1892, but 1889 has been confirmed. Dold studied art at the College of William and Mary in Virginia to 1912, and with his brother joined the Serbian army in 1915. Although his 44 Art Deco drawings for Harold Hersey's Night (1923) are perhaps his finest work, ...
Burrage, A Harcourt
(1899-1951) UK author, one of several writers in the Burrage family: his father was Edwin Harcourt Burrage (1839-1916), the brother of Alfred Sherrington Burrage (1843-1906), whose son was Alfred McLelland Burrage (1889-1956) [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], best known of the clan. Though less prolific than his relatives, Burrage wrote several volumes of children's fiction, those of sf interest including ...
Plowright, Teresa
(1952- ) Canadian author who began publishing sf with Dreams of an Unseen Planet (1986; rev 1989), in which three human colony ships, having escaped an Earth near terminal Ecological collapse, orbit a sentient planet called Gaea (see Gaia), where they are stranded, and difficulties soon ensue. The tale, heavily burdened with symbols and a selfconsciously significant prose, climaxes in the ...
Fantastic Voyages
The fantastic voyage is one of the oldest literary forms, the first paradigm instances of its use being the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, from the third millennium BCE, and Homer's Odyssey (circa sixth century BCE); it remains one of the basic frameworks for the casting of literary fantasies. Of the prose forms extant before the development of the form of nonfantastic prose fiction that became identified as the novel in the eighteenth century, 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 ...