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Saturday 14 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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Bleiler, Everett F
(1920-2010) US editor, bibliographer and critic who for many years remained best known as the compiler of The Checklist of Fantastic Literature: A Bibliography of Fantasy, Weird and Science Fiction Books Published in the English Language (1948; rev vt The Checklist of Science-Fiction and Supernatural Fiction 1978), which Shasta Publishers was founded to produce. The Checklist, which lists 5000 books from the period 1800-1948, ...
Barry, Richard
(1881-1958) screenwriter, theatrical producer and author, active from around 1905; his Fruit of the Desert (September 1919 Short Stories as "The Secret of the Desert"; exp 1920) is a Lost Race Western set in desert California and featuring survivors of the Aztec Empire. Several long tales of potential interest appeared only in magazines; they include "Sea Lure" (20-27 February 1926 ...
Coatsworth, J Scott
(? - ) US author much of whose output has been concentrated on various subseries in his Liminal Sky sequence of Space Operas, whose gay protagonists engagingly explore themselves, the worlds they encounter, and find romance (see Sex). The first of these, the Ariadne Cycle beginning with The Stark Divide (2017), focuses on three ...
Rechts, Albert
Pseudonym of Irish lawyer, journalist and author Charles Brett (1928-2005), who wrote architectural studies as C E B Brett; Handbook to a Hypothetical City (1986 chap) as Albert Rechts traces the contours through time of a City not dissimilar to those that appear in the works of Italo Calvino, with the lives depicted here in outline strongly evoking the elaborately staged lives of urban dwellers in many ...
Ure, Jean
(1943- ) UK author of a wide range of fiction for Young Adult readers, her active career beginning with the nonfantastic Dance for Two (1960) and continuing for well over half a century. Relatively little of her work is of sf interest, the main exception being the dark Plague 99 sequence comprising Plague 99 (1989; vt Plague 1991), Come Lucky April (1992; vt ...
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 ...