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Thursday 21 May 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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Finch, Sheila
(1935- ) UK-born author, in the USA from 1957, naturalized in 1965, who began publishing sf with "The Confession of Melakos" for Sou-wester in 1977; some of her early stories appeared as by Sheila Finch-Rayner. Her first novel, Infinity's Web (1985), complicatedly describes the lives of five versions of one protagonist who live in various Alternate Worlds, and who gradually gain a sense of the mutual web they ...
Ophelion
UK prog metal band. Their debut album The Jaunt (2025) is a concept album based on the short story "The Jaunt" (June 1981 Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine) by Stephen King. In the future, Teleportation is common but safe only under sedation. Story and album follow the consequences of breaking the rules and staying conscious during the process, and ...
MacApp, C C
Pseudonym used by US colour printer Carroll M Capps (1913-1971) in his writing career, which began – after illness forced his retirement – with "A Pride of Islands" in If for May 1960, with which magazine (and its stablemates) he was chiefly associated for the balance of his short career. Much of his fiction concerns itself with Invasions by Aliens, notably the Gree stories in ...
Yamazaki Haruya
(1938-2002) Japanese author and scenarist who wrote dozens of Anime scripts in the 1970s and 1980s. Having worked part-time for Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Production while still a student at Waseda University, Yamazaki found full-time employment at the studio as a production manager after graduation. He sold his first television anime script in 1966, and soon became a prolific contributor to many shows in the sports and children's genres. His ...
Silberstang, Edwin
(1930-2012) US lawyer and author, mostly of nonfiction books on gambling techniques; of sf interest is Sweet Land of Liberty (1972), a Near Future Political thriller in which the daughter of the American president after Richard Nixon is kidnapped, and treated very roughly. [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 ...