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Sunday 5 April 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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O'Brien, Fitz-James
(1828-1862) Irish-born US author, whose natal name was Michael Fitz-James O'Brien but who did not use the Michael: he published his first poem in 1845 as Fitz-James O'Brien, which name he seems to have legally adopted around the time of his arrival in New York in 1852; he remained active until his death from an infected wound in the US Civil War. O'Brien contributed numerous poems and minor stories to the magazines, his first work of genre interest being "An Arabian Nightmare" for ...
Palmer, Jane
(1946- ) UK author and illustrator who began writing sf with the Moosevan sequence – comprising The Planet Dweller (1985), Moving Moosevan (1990), Duckbill Soup (2011) and Brassica Park (2018) – which presents a comic set of Parodies of sf Clichés as the giant Shapeshifting ...
Grove, Peter J
(? - ) UK author of an unremarkable sf adventure for Robert Hale Limited, The Levellers (1981) [JC]
Rewolinski, Leah
(1954- ) US author of the Star Wreck series of Parodies set in the Star Trek universe, structured so that sets of characters from different sub-series share (in a sense) the same Spaceship. Much of the humour is extremely broad, beginning with spoof alterations of individual names – Captain James T Smirk and Captain Jean-Lucy Ricardo being typical – and proceeding ...
Arañas Infernales
["Hellish Spiders"] Mexican film (1968; vt Hellish Spiders; vt Cerebros diabolicos; vt Blue Demon vs. the Hellish Spiders). Filmica Vergara S.A. Directed by Federico Curiel. Written by Adolfo Torres Portillo from an idea by Luis Enrique Vergara. Cast includes Martha Elena Cervantes, Alejandro Moreno, Fernando Osés, Blanca Sánchez and Sergio Virel. 85 minutes. Black and white. / A narrator informs us that other planets are ...
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 ...