SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 20 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.
Site updated on 19 October 2026
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
Snyder, John
(? -? ) US author of an sf Satire, The Wind Trust: A Possible Prophecy (1903 chap), set in a grimly spoofed Near Future where a nefarious cartel, the Instamboul Corporation for the Control of the Wind, attempts to gain monopoly control over the elements – first taking ownership of the wind, then charging a royalty for breathing. As the cartel or trust begins to threaten the world ...
Greunke, Gregory
(? - ) US author whose first novel, The Water Carriers (2025), depicts a Near Future Earth devastated by a seventeen-year drought (see Climate Change); this unending Disaster turns out to have been engendered (or at the very least manipulated via AI) by the rulers of Cambodia and the Ivory Coast, both countries remaining ...
Rip Hunter, Time Master
A DC Comics Superhero, created by Jack Miller and Ruben Moreira in 1959; after appearances in Showcase, he graduated to his own title, which lasted from 1961 to 1965. He is a Scientist who invents a time-travelling vehicle, the Time Sphere (see Time Travel), and with three colleagues – Jeff Smith, Bonnie Baxter, and Corky Baxter – he made regular ...
Trow, William Clark
(1894-1982) US educational psychologist whose primary focus on the use of Psychology to address the nature of forma learning is reflected in Gulliver's Visit to Walden III: A Report on the Values in Education (1976), which couched as Gulliver's visit to a later version of the Utopia promulgated in B F Skinner's Walden Two (1948). [JC]
Weisman, Jacob
(1965- ) US editor and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Death and the Elephant" in Amaranth: Tales of the Supernatural (anth 1991) edited by Alayne Gelfand, most of his limited output being in collaboration with David Sandner, with whom he also collaborated on his first Anthology, The Treasury of the Fantastic: Romanticism to Early Twentieth Century Literature (anth 2001). His other ...
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 ...