SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 9 December 2025
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 December 2025
Sponsor of the day: Ted Chiang
Idle, Eric
(1943- ) UK comedian, composer, actor, and author of a wide range of comic material, from skits for the famous UK Television series Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1974) to the book and libretto for the play Monty Python's Spamalot (2005), and of two novels, the second of which, The Road to Mars: A Post-Modern Novel (1999), is sf featuring an ...
Bovell, Andrew
(1962- ) Australian playwright, also active as a screenwriter, his credits in the latter capacity including a screenplay for the 2010 film version of Edge of Darkness (1985), a UK television tale in six parts in which the government has colluded with a multinational corporation to construct a highly-toxic nuclear power plant almost certain to instigate toxic pollution. Of his numerous plays, When the Rain Stops Falling ...
Willis, Walt
(1919-1999) Irish civil servant, editor and author, one of the most notable members of Irish and world Fandom, whose main period of activity ran from 1948 to the mid-1960s. He co-edited and wrote for two classic Fanzines, Slant and Hyphen, and was a highly regarded columnist under the regular title "The Harp That Once or Twice" in Quandry and other fanzines ...
Vansittart, Peter
(1920-2008) UK author best known for his densely written historical novels, whose polymathic metaphoric richness brought an aesthetic seriousness and density to that form; his consistent failure to gain a wide readership, over a career that lasted more than six decades, must qualify any claim that he transformed the historical novel as a whole – though it seems certain that those who read him were deeply influenced by his example. Vansittart's first novel, however, is sf, a form he used ...
Crow, Martha Foote
(1854-1924) US poet and author of The World Above: A Duologue (1905 chap), a short play of interest for its depiction of an Underground Dystopian Pocket Universe, from which the two protagonists escape, upwards into the surface world. [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 ...