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Friday 16 October 2026
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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Edwards, Malcolm
(1949-2026) UK editor, critic and publisher, educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in anthropology. Active in UK sf Fandom in the 1970s and early 1980s, he published the first complete text of James Blish's "The Science in Science Fiction" (May 1951-May 1952 Science Fiction Quarterly) in his Fanzine Quicksilver #2 in 1971; edited the ...
Hesky, Olga
(1912-1974) UK editor and author in whose wry and somewhat Surrealist sf novel, The Purple Armchair (1961), the Alien who resembles an armchair and is purple must decide whether or not the human race – caught in a near-future Dystopia dominated by Computers – should survive. Eventually the "chair" says no. [JC]
Apparitions
UK tv series (2008). BBC, Lime Pictures. Directed by Joe Ahearne. Written by Joe Ahearne. Cast includes Luigi Diberti, Siobhan Finneran, Elyes Gabel, David Gyasi, Martin Shaw, John Shrapnel and Rick Warden. Six 60-minute episodes. Colour. / Father Jacob Myers (Shaw) is a London-based priest tasked with investigating the "causes of saints", a Catholic detective responsible for assessing the veracity of miracles. He has been targeted by the forces of evil (see ...
Valente, Catherynne M
(1979- ) US editor, fancaster, poet and author, born Bethany Thomas, Valente apparently being her legal name, who won a Rhysling Award for her long poem, "The Seven Devils of Central California" (Summer 2007 Farrago's Wainscot); she began to publish prose work of genre interest with "Exsanguinations: A Handbook for the Educated Vampire by Anna S Oppenhagen-Petrescu" in By Blood We Live (anth ...
Agnew, Ewan
(1893-1930) UK politician and playwright who was in active service during World War One, and who may have been blackballed from The Reform Club by E M Forster, but seems otherwise unnoted. In his sf play, The Shingling of Jupiter: A Fantastic Play for Serious People in Three Acts (1924 chap), Major Smith, a Mysterious Stranger from the eponymous planet who is on a spying ...
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 ...