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Sunday 7 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.
Site updated on 1 December 2025
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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 ...
Loud, Emily S
(1839-1922) US journalist and author of Taurua; Or, Written in the Book of Fate (1899), a Lost Race novel set in Tahiti, whose native rulers trace their legitimacy back to a civilization not recognized by Europeans bent on their Imperialist missions. [JC]
J J J
Pseudonym of the unidentified UK author (? - ) of The Blue Shirts (1926), a Near Future political thriller in which the eponymous para-legal cadre attempts to create a Socialist Republic of Great Britain. Several separate Fascist organizations, each known as The Blue Shirts, were founded in or around 1932 in China, Ireland, Portugal; members of the Parti national social chrétien in mid-1930s ...
Captain Future
US Pulp magazine, 17 issues Winter 1940 to Spring 1944, quarterly (missing Fall 1943). Published by Better Publications; edited by Leo Margulies with Mort Weisinger (1940-1941) and Oscar J Friend (1941-1944). A companion magazine to Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories, Captain Future ...
Hoyt, Richard
(1941- ) US journalist and author in whose first novel, The Manna Enzyme (1982), Fidel Castro (1926-2016) plays a positive role, with the CIA and KGB seen negatively, in Near Future attempts to promulgate an Invention – the manna enzyme of the title – capable of ending world starvation. Most of Hoyt's works are thrillers; two of the John Denson sequence – ...
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 ...