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Monday 16 March 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.
Site updated on 9 March 2026
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Jakes, John
(1932-2023) US author initially best known for sf and fantasy, under his own name and various pseudonyms including Alan Henry, Jacob Johns, Alan Payne, Jay Scotland and Alan Wilder, before launching his Bicentennial series of novels, which traces the fictional history of a US family over the past 200 years. It achieved extraordinary bestsellerdom, undoubtedly justifying, at least financially, his decision to retire from the genre. Most of his shorter work, beginning with "The Dreaming ...
Oliphant, Laurence
(1829-1888) South African-born UK adventurer, diplomat politician and author, well known for nonfiction texts which described his own adventures in Asia, Africa and South America while at the same time advocating solutions to the "problems" he encountered, whether social or military; on more than one occasion these texts were tacitly sponsored by the UK Foreign Office. In 1867, he joined an American Utopian community, the Brotherhood of the New Life, founded by the ...
Pseudoscience
Pseudosciences are here defined as belief systems which, though adopting a scientific or quasiscientific terminology, are generally regarded as erroneous or unproven by the orthodox scientific community; frequently they not merely disagree with, or are improbable adjuncts to, accepted science but violate its fundamental tenets; several relevant figures and ideas have elsewhere been sorted under the "techno-occultism" rubric, in terms consistent with their presentation in this entry. They are ...
Milner, Andrew
(1950- ) British-born academic, in Australia for many years, sociologist of literature and cultural theorist; educated as an undergraduate and postgraduate at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he studied sociology; his PhD thesis was published as John Milton and the English Revolution: A Study in the Sociology of Literature (1981). He taught in Sociology at the London School of Economics and at Goldsmiths College, London, in Cultural Studies at the ...
Crawford, Isabell C
(? -? ) Author, possibly Canadian, of The Tapestry of Time (1927), an Atlantis tale which segues through the ill-advised use of atomic energy into the story of the creation of an ill-fated civilization in the Andes (see Lost World), and of another one in Crete, which also ends in tears. [JC]
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 ...