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Wednesday 11 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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Midnight Marquee
US letter-size saddle-stapled Media Magazine. Publisher: Gary J Svehla and Susan Svehla as Midnight Marquee Press, Incorporated. Editors: Gary J Svehla and Susan Svehla. 1963-current. The publication schedule, nominally three times per year, is highly irregular. / Driven by his great enthusiasm for Famous Monsters of Filmland, the then very young Gary Svehla (1950- ) launched this magazine ...
Mitchell, Professor Willis
(1846-1919) US entrepreneur who described himself on census returns as "inventor" or once as "electrical inventor", holder of many 1890s patents, mostly for improvements on existing inventions. In his modestly fictionalized Utopia, The Inhabitants of Mars [for subtitle see Checklist] (1895), the "Professor" interviews a man who has visited Mars in a hypnotic trance. Mars is run mostly by electricity (see ...
Harlan, Thomas
(1964- ) US Wargame designer and author, who focused initially on fantasy, primarily the Oath of Empire series beginning with The Shadow of Ararat (1999), set in an Alternate World lacking a specific sf frame. He is of sf interest for the Time of the Sixth Sun sequence, comprising Wasteland of Flint (2003), House of Reeds (2004) and ...
Woodhouse, Martin
(1932-2011) UK physician (non-practising), entrepreneur, screenwriter and author, whose first work of sf interest seems to have been the story "The Higher Mathematics" as M C Woodhouse for Authentic Science Fiction #46 in June 1954. More significant was his collaboration, with his brother Hugh Woodhouse, as screenwriter for twenty-two of the twenty-six scripts for the 1961 first season of the weekly Television puppet ...
Greeno, Gayle
(1949- ) US author of two connected series of Planetary Romances: the Ghatti's Tale sequence beginning with The Ghatti's Tale: Book One: Finders-Seekers (1993) and the Ghatten's Gambit sequence ending with The Farthest Seeking (2000). On the abandoned colony planet of Methuen, various categories of being – including the unsurprisingly Cat-like Ghatti, who are ...
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 ...