SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 27 May 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 25 May 2026
Sponsor of the day: Ansible Editions
White, Ted
Working name of US editor and author Theodore Edwin White (1938-2026), who also wrote as by Ron Archer, Norman Edwards and William C Johnstone. He was co-editor 1958-1969 of the noted Fanzine Void founded by Gregory Benford and Jim Benford. After working as assistant editor for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 1963-1968, he became the sometimes ...
Bassett, James C
(? - ) US painter, sculptor and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Storm Warning" in Young Blood (anth 1994) edited by Mike Baker. His one sf novel is Living Real (1997), a Near-Future tale of Cyberspace and Virtual Reality whose protagonist discovers a means to make VR seem truly real, with potentially ...
Testa, Dom
(? - ) US broadcaster and author, active for about forty years in the former capacity; his Young Adult Galahad sequence beginning with Galahad 1: The Comet's Curse (2004) is set after all human adults have died in a Pandemic caused by a virus imported from off-planet, and focuses on the adventures of a group of 251 children on a Spaceship en ...
Cameron, Verney Lovett
(1844-1894) UK naval officer, explorer and author; after Henry Stanley had found David Livingstone in central Africa (and lost him), Cameron mounted a second expedition, which found the explorer's body. He was subsequently the first European to cross Africa east to west. In contemporary terms, his explorations were comparatively enlightened: he did not shoot animals, except for food; and he did not murder Africans. Most of his early work consists of nonfiction descriptions of his travels; after ...
Shock
US Digest-size magazine. Publisher: Winston Publications Inc. The uncredited editor was possibly Bart Anders. Three bimonthly issues: May, July and September 1960. / 1. This short-lived but high-quality weird fiction magazine – subtitled "The Magazine of Terrifying Tales" – consisted largely of reprints, mostly of strong stories by notable authors, many also active in sf. Selections include "The Emissary" (May 1943 ...
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 (1966-1967), and later in ...