SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 9 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 8 June 2026
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Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author, active from around 1950, 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 ...
Threlfall, T R
(1852-circa 1933) UK politician, trade unionist and author; elected president of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in 1885, serving in various positions over the next decade or so. He failed in more than one election campaign, the last as a Lib-Lab candidate for Kirkdale in 1892, and subsequently focused on writing. The Sword of Allah (1899), which features a Scottish soldier of fortune at Medina, prefigures his sf novel, The Great Magician (1901), in which a ...
Wow Comics
US Comic (1940-1948). 69 issues. Fawcett Publications. Artists include Ed Ashe, Jack Binder, Dick MacKay, Carl Pfeufer, C R Schaare, Marc Swayze and Bert Whitman. Script writers include Otto Binder (see Eando Binder), Dick Kraus, Dick MacKay and Joe Millard. Initially 68 pages; gradual reduction to 36 for #30-#41; 52 from #42. The comic began with 9 long strips, but from #6 it usually had only 4-5. Also ...
Russell, Eric Frank
(1905-1978) UK author who used the pseudonyms Webster Craig, Duncan H Munro and Niall Wilde (also spelled Naille Wilde) on a few short stories, and borrowed Maurice G Hugi's (see Brad Kent) name for one other, "The Mechanical Mice" (January 1941 Astounding). He began publishing work of genre interest with "The Saga of Pelican West" for Astounding Science-Fiction in 1937, and he was only the second UK writer, after ...
Leimbach, Marti
(1963- ) US author, almost entirely of nonfantastic novels, often with a focus on Medicine and the complex traumas of illness, with an emphasis on neurological conditions. The best known of these tales are probably Dying Young (1990) and Daniel Isn't Talking (2006); both were filmed. Leimbach is of sf interest for the Near Future Young Adult ...
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 ...