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Saturday 7 February 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 6 February 2026
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Sallis, James
(1944-2026) US musician, poet and author, briefly active in New Worlds during its Michael Moorcock-directed New-Wave phase; he began to publish work of genre interest in this context with "Kazoo" (August 1967 New Worlds) and co-edited the magazine 1968-1969. His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work ...
Lapine, Warren
(1964- ) US heavy-metal musician (prior to his publishing career), author, editor and Small Press publisher who began to publish work of genre interest with "Desolation" for the Fanzine The Equinox in 1992. He has occasionally used the pseudonym Jamie Wild for stories published in his own magazines, in particular Absolute Magnitude [see below]. ...
McKay, Laura Jean
(1978- ) Australian author whose very Near Future novel, The Animals in That Country (2020), which won the Arthur C Clarke Award, describes a planetary Pandemic whose most radical effect is an opening of the gates of Perception – and, it may be, actual language (see Communication; ...
Pascal, Jacques
Pseudonym of unidentified US author (? - ) of two Near Future erotic novels (see Sex), Virgin's Sacrifice (1980) and Futuresex (1981). [JC]
Penmare, William
Pseudonym of UK author Mavis Elizabeth Hocking Nisot (1893-1973) which she used for two of her novels, the second, The Man Who Could Stop War (1929), being a Near Future Scientific Romance in which the Invention of an immobilizing gas helps thwart a Russian Invasion. She is better known for her detective tales as E H Nisot. [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 ...