SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 15 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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McKesson, Charles L
(? -? ) US author of Under Pike's Peak; Or, Mahalma, Child of the Fire Father (1898), in which a Lost World is discovered Underground, in the caverns beneath Pike's Peak. The inhabitants are dwarfish but Telepathic, their queen, Mahalma child of the Fire Father, is a "normal" woman who gives her body to the protagonist's rival, in order to save her ...
Costello, Jamie
Pseudonym of UK author Laura Wilson (1964- ), who under her own name has published nonfiction as well as the nonfantastic DI Stratton historical thriller series, set in 1950s London [the sequence is not listed below]. Costello is of sf interest for the Young Adult novel Monochrome (2022), set in a Near Future Dystopian world afflicted by industrial ...
Beck, Clyde F
(1912-1986) US author, fan and critic who began to publish work of genre interest with "When the Moons Met!" for Wonder Stories in August 1930. He is best remembered for the first work of criticism devoted to American sf, Hammer and Tongs (coll 1937 chap). This is assembled from four essays and reviews contributed to The Science Fiction Critic – an early ...
Corbett, Julian
(1854-1922) UK author (in his early career) who later became a naval historian (partly for reasons of social prestige). He is the author of a Lost Race tale, Kophetua the Thirteenth (1889 2vols), which describes the ancient Christian kingdom of Oneiria, a Utopia founded in Africa by an Englishman; notably, this utopia, based on a reform of Money, contains within it a ...
Dow, Alechia
(? - ) US author whose loose Young Adult Sound of Stars sequence beginning with The Sound of Stars (2020) is set in a Near Future world devastated by an accidental War between Homo sapiens and the Alien Ilori, whose Post-Holocaust Invasion of Earth ...
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 ...