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Friday 5 December 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.
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Scott, Donna
(1973- ) Working name of Donna Bond, a UK short story author, poet, stand-up comedian and editor who is a director, and former chair (2013-2019), of the British Science Fiction Association. She has worked as contributor, proofreader and editor for several Small Presses, with her first genre story "Fools Gold" appearing in Under the Rose (anth ...
Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall
(1931- ) US anthropologist and author whose expeditions to Africa between 1950 and 1956 resulted in her first book, the nonfiction The Harmless People (1959), about the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert. Her two novels are of interest as intense examples of Prehistoric SF, where speculations about Homo sapiens that cannot be claimed to bear the warrant of professional testability serve as ...
Mori Hiroshi
(1957- ) Prolific Japanese author and model-maker, who gave up youthful Manga illustration under the name Mori Muku to specialize in rheology (the flow of viscous plastics). He became an associate professor in engineering at Nagoya University before quitting in 2005 to become a full-time author of prose fiction. Mori is largely known as a thriller writer in Japan, usually with scientific themes recalling the detective ...
Gibbon, Edwarda
Pseudonym of New Zealand (?) author Charles J Stone (? -? ), whose The History of the Decline and Fall of the British Empire (1884 chap) is a Near Future tale in which a shift in the Gulf Stream causes a savage Climate Change to afflict Britain; eventually, after a century or two, the monarchy moves shop to New Zealand. The tale is told as by a native of that land (see ...
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 ...