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Tuesday 11 August 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 10 August 2026
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Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
Friedell, Egon
(1878-1938) Austrian cabaret artist, wit, polymath, translator and author, born Egon Friedmann (he changed his name to Friedell in 1916), rejected for military service in World War One through physical disabilities; he also wrote as by Egon Friedländer. He remains best known for his seminal Kulturgeschichte der Neuzeit: die Krisis der europäischen Seele von der Schwarzen Pest bis zum Weltkrieg (1927-1931 ...
Riley, Terry
(1935- ) US composer, one of the most influential and enduring figures associated with minimalist music from the 1960s onwards, as evidenced by much-recorded pieces such as In C (1963), though much of his subsequent work strays far from minimalist orthodoxy. He was also a pioneer of electronic composition, most famously A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969). Sun Rings (original multimedia presentation 2002, first full recording ...
Leading Edge, The
US Semiprozine produced by students at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. It began in April 1981 and has generally appeared twice yearly; occasionally (as in 1987 and 2015) there were three issues, and in several other years only a single issue. The Leading Edge is published in a perfect-bound Digest format. It is edited by the students, usually an individual or group for an academic year at a time, and therefore the ...
Wheatley, Dennis
(1897-1977) UK author, in active service during both World War One and World War Two, in the latter conflict with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve 1941-1944; active from around 1925. He was a prolific and extremely popular author of many espionage thrillers and historical romances, although the best of his work – and since his death the only category of his large oeuvre to be read at all widely – consists of ...
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 ...