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Sunday 7 June 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 2 June 2026
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Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author several of whose books focused on London, including Capital (1975), a complex set of era-switching meditations – including a Neanderthal man's thoughts about the future – on the deep mythos of the city. The novel influenced Michael Moorcock's Mother London (1988) (as the author acknowledged clearly), and similar later works by Iain ...
Egypt
A full entry for sf in Egypt must await a contributor fluent in its language and able to report from the inside on the development of the genre there, and on untranslated works. Relevant authors given entries in this encyclopedia are Omar El Akkad, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Mohamed Kheir, Mustafa Mahmud, Ramez Naam and Aḩmad ...
Jorgensen, Ivar
Floating Pseudonym – also spelled or misspelled Ivar Jorgenson – first used in the Ziff-Davis magazines Amazing Stories and Fantastic, subsequently used in If, Imagination and Imaginative Tales. Its main user was Paul W Fairman (whom see ...
Swerling, Anthony
(1944-2004) UK author of The Cambridge Plague: An Illustrated Fantasia on the Social and Sexual Climate Generated by the Descent of the Plague on a Cambridge of the Future (1971), a Near Future Satire, heavily illustrated by the author, whose premise is amply expounded in its subtitle. [JC]
Ballinger, William S
(1912-1980) US screenwriter (10 scripts between 1954 and 1974) and author who has also signed his books Bill S Ballinger (but who should not be confused with W A Ballinger, a House Name used by W Howard Baker and Wilfred McNeilly); he also published books as by Frederic Freyer and B X Sanborn. His work in radio, film and television was relatively successful (he won an Edgar Award ...
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 ...