SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 12 November 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 11 November 2026
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Davidson, Steve
(1958-2026) US fan (active with letters published in SF Magazines as early as 1978), editor and publisher. In 2012 he acquired the then-moribund Amazing Stories (which see), reviving it first as a lively website with a news and reviews blog, then with ebook and webzine issues, and – with help from Kickstarter funding – as a print magazine from August 2018 (#614 dated Fall 2018) to Summer 2020 (#619) with Ira ...
Vanguard Science Fiction
US Digest-size magazine. One issue, June 1958, published by Vanguard Science Fiction; edited by James Blish. Vanguard Science Fiction made a promising debut: it included the much-anthologized "Reap the Dark Tide" (vt "Shark Ship" in A Mile Beyond the Moon, coll 1958) by C M Kornbluth, plus what were intended as regular features by L Sprague ...
Palmer, Dexter
(1974- ) US author whose first novel, The Dream of Perpetual Motion (2010), a Steampunk tale set in an Alternate World version of America where the protagonist, enduring luxurious imprisonment in a zeppelin floating above a fantasticated City while remembering – in something like a dream state – his beloved Miranda and her father Prospero, the latter ...
Smith, D R
Working name of Donald Raymond Smith (1917-1999), UK author, editor and fan who along with J Michael Rosenblum was instrumental in maintaining lines of communication within UK Fandom during World War Two, in particular editing the British Fantasy Society Bulletin (1942-1946). He was an often controversial columnist in Britain's first ...
Carpenter, Elmer J
(1907-1988) US author in whose Moonspin (1967) a foreign power gains control of Earth's weather, threatening to freeze the planet (see Climate Change; Weather Control); but a fight-back effort by Scientists on the Moon may save the day. An earlier novel, Nile Fever (1959), is not sf. [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 ...