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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 ...
Hughes, Ted
(1930-1998) Working name of UK poet Edward James Hughes for all his writing. He is best known for volumes of dark, violent verse such as Crow (coll 1970; rev 1971), which like much of his work features representations of other species in terms hinting at internally generated but mythically resonant metamorphoses; also of interest as an unfettered contribution to the fantastic is Gaudete (1977), a book-length narrative poem whose protagonist, after his ...
Super 8
Film (2011). Amblin Entertainment/Bad Robot Productions for Paramount Pictures. Produced by J J Abrams and Steven Spielberg. Directed by Abrams. Written by Abrams. Cast includes Gabriel Basso, Kyle Chandler, Joel Courtney, Ron Eldard, Noah Emmerich, Elle Fanning, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee, Zach Mills and Glynn Turman. 112 minutes. Colour. / Summer, 1979. Teenage high-school friends are making an amateur ...
Escarpit, Robert
(1918-2000) French academic, Information Theory pioneer, author, and journalist known for satirical pieces in such magazines as Le Monde, Le Matin and Sud-Quest. He is of sf interest for Le littératron; roman picaresque (1964; trans Peter Green as The Novel Computer: A Picaresque Novel 1966), a Satire centred on the Invention of a literary ...
Ganthony, Richard
(1856-1924) UK playwright and author of the sf play, A Message from Mars: A Fantastic Comedy in Three Acts (performed 1899), which was first published in novelized form as A Message from Mars: A Story Founded on the Popular Play by Richard Ganthony (1912) by Lester Lurgan, and in something like its original form as A Message from Mars: A Fantastic Comedy in Three Acts (1923 chap), which was a revision of the original script. ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star ...