SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 20 July 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 16 July 2025
Sponsor of the day: Ted Chiang
Williams, Tess
(1954-2025) UK-born teacher, editor and author, in Australia for many years, there receiving a degree in literature from Curtin University and an MA in creative writing from the University of Western Australia. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Padwan Affair" in She's Fantastical (anth 1995) edited by Judith Raphael Buckrich and Lucy Sussex. Of sf interest are two novels: Map of Power (1996), set mostly in a ...
Jepson, Edgar
(1863-1938) UK schoolteacher and author, prolific in various popular genres from 1895; father of Selwyn Jepson, grandfather of Fay Weldon; some of his books are of sf interest. Half-Ruritania, half-Dystopia, Varandaleel, the imaginary land-locked Asian country in The Keepers of the People (1898), has been ruled for generations by Englishmen; the novel, an ...
Kritzer, Naomi
(1973- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Faust's SASE" in Scavenger's Newsletter for September 1999; during her early career she published mostly fantasy, including the Eliana's Song sequence beginning with the Young Adult Fires of the Faithful (2002), set in a fantasy land oppressed by Religious fundamentalism, but saved by the versatile young protagonist; ...
Austen, Catherine
(1965- ) Canadian author, almost exclusively for younger readers and the Young Adult audience, most of her work being nonfantastic; the time machine in Walking Backwards (2009) is a delusion on the part of the protagonist's grieving father. Of sf interest is All Good Children (2011), set in a Dystopian Near Future world ...
Fisher, Steve
Working name of US naval officer and author Steven Gould Fisher (1912-1980) who also wrote as by Grant Lane; he wrote fairly widely for the Pulp magazines, including several stories for Doc Savage beginning with "Flame in the Wind" (February 1937 Doc Savage). Destroyer (1941) is a Future War tale, published just prior to the American entry into ...
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 ...