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Saturday 17 October 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.
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Edwards, Malcolm
(1949-2026) UK editor, critic and publisher, educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in anthropology. Active in UK sf Fandom in the 1970s and early 1980s, he published the first complete text of James Blish's "The Science in Science Fiction" (May 1951-May 1952 Science Fiction Quarterly) in his Fanzine Quicksilver #2 in 1971; edited the ...
Agriculture
It is not a subject that naturally lends itself to dramatic storytelling, but agriculture is nonetheless the activity that has long been the primary source of food for humans, and it will likely remain essential, in one form or another, in the future. Thus, some sf writers who look beyond heroic adventures to more broadly consider the future fate of humanity have addressed this mundane but vital profession. Sf stories about agriculture can be roughly categorized as follows: depictions of ...
West, Rebecca
Pseudonym of UK journalist and author Cicily Isabel Fairfield Andrews (1892-1983), H G Wells's partner 1913-1923; she also wrote as by Lynx. She began to publish her astute and polemical nonfiction around 1911; her first novel, The Return of the Soldier (1918), which stretches its nonfantastic mode to the limit, stands as a very early response to the profound trauma of World War One. The soldier, who is a victim of ...
Culbreath, Myrna
(1938- ) US author known almost exclusively for her collaborations with Sondra Marshak as a producer of Ties for Star Trek, beginning with Star Trek: The New Voyages (coll 1976) and its direct sequel Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 (anth 1978); with Marshak she also wrote ...
Kenson, Stephen
(1969- ) US Game designer and author whose sf books include several actively told novels Tied to the Shadowrun Role Playing Game, beginning with Shadowrun: Technobabel (1998), plus the less interesting BattleTech: Mech Warrior: Ghost of Winter (1999), set in the Battletech game universe, and ...
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 ...