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Friday 13 June 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.
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Longyear, Barry B
(1942-2025) US author and editor who ran a printing company with his wife before beginning to write in 1977, beginning to publish work of genre interest with "The Tryouts" in Asimov's for November/December 1978. Before his 1981 hospitalization for alcoholism and addiction to prescription drugs – an experience which formed the basis of his non-sf novel Saint Mary Blue (1988) – he had already published prolifically, sometimes as by Frederick ...
Henham, Ernest G
(1870-1948) UK author whose first novel of genre interest after the marginal God, Man, & the Devil (1897), mostly notable for a final dream so terrible it kills the dreamer, was Tenebrae (1898), which features the depredations of a monstrous spider, as experienced by a madman. Bonanza: A Story of the Outside (1901) is a tale of the Arctic Gold Rush in which prospectors stumble across a valley protected by a magnetic ...
Bloom, Harold
(1930-2019) US academic and author, active from the mid-1950s, author of one novel, The Flight to Lucifer: A Gnostic Fantasy (1979), whose subtitle is accurate. As a critic, he is best known for his analysis of the relationship between strong male authors and their predecessors over the last several centuries of Western literature, an analysis deeply influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud, an influence he freely admitted made him anxious. ...
They Were Eleven
Japanese animated film (1986; original title Jūichinin Iru!; vt We Were Eleven). Magic Bus. Based on the Manga by Moto Hagio. Directed by Satoshi Dezaki and Tsuneo Tominaga. Written by Toshiaki Imaizumi and Kazumi Koide. Voice cast includes Akira Kamiya and Michiko Kawai. 91 minutes. Colour. / Over several centuries humanity has achieved ...
Morgan, Dave
Working name of David O W Morgan (1951- ), UK author of three novels for Robert Hale Limited, Reiver (1975), in which Mercenary Guilds provide an outlet for youthful aggression and thus maintain world peace; Genetic Two (1976), with a struggle for survival on a far planet; and Adverse Camber (1977). Each is an unremarkable but efficient sf adventure. [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 ...