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Thursday 29 January 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 26 January 2026
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Rabe, Jean
(1957-2026) US game designer, author and editor who began to publish work of genre interest with "Grandfather's Toys" in Realms of Valor (anth 1993) edited by James Lowder, an anthology tied to the Forgotten Realms Shared World. Much of Rabe's work is tied to other fantasy and supernatural franchises such as Dragonlance and Rogue Angel [see Checklist below]; contributions to the latter sequence appear as by Alex ...
Birkmaier, Elizabeth G
(1847-1912) US author, known only for her sf novel about Atlantis, Poseidon's Paradise: The Romance of Atlantis (1892); the Island, whose rulers are corrupt, sinks after an earthquake, though two abducted royal European children escape to what will become Greece, which they begin to civilize, aided by Atlantean lore. [JC]
Bantam Books
Large US publishing house, a general publisher, mainly of paperbacks, rather than an sf specialist. It was founded in 1945 by Ian Ballantine, but he left in 1952 to form Ballantine Books because he wanted to publish paperback originals, whereas Bantam's list was almost entirely of reprints – although one early sf paperback original (but not published as sf) from Bantam was Shot in the Dark (anth 1950) edited by Judith ...
Templeton, Timothy
Pseudonym of US author Charles Adams (? -? ), whose sf Satire on antebellum America, The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth; Or, the Little Quibbles of Great Governments (1856), though allegorized as a series of letters to Uncle Sam, does feature a voyage in a Balloon at such a speed that the Sun is overtaken. [JC]
Barlow, Jane
(1856-1917) Irish author, often under pseudonyms, including Antares Skorpios (technically a House Name, as her father, James William Barlow, later used that name for an sf novel) and Felix Ryark. A Strange Land (1908) as by Felix Ryark is a Lost Race tale whose protagonist, penetrating a mysterious mist in a tiny boat, comes across the land in question, which is not described ...
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 ...