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Thursday 22 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.
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Dillard, J M
Pseudonym of US author Jeanne M Kalogridis (1954- ) who, under her own name, is the author of the Chronicles of Family Dracul series of horror novels [see Checklist], as well as at least three historical novels. As Dillard, she is most identified with the Star Trek domain, for which she has written about 15 Ties, beginning with Star Trek: Mindshadow (1986). It is a clear sign of her competence in ...
Ambushers, The
Film (1967). Columbia Pictures Corporation. Produced by Irving Allen. Directed by Henry Levin. Written by Herbert Baker based loosely on The Ambushers (1963) and (uncredited) The Menacers (1968), both by Donald Hamilton. Cast includes Senta Berger, James Gregory, Dean Martin, Janice Rule and Albert Salmi. 102 minutes. Colour. / Matt Helm (Martin), top agent for ICE (Intelligence and Counter Espionage), arrives at the ...
Cook, Frederick S
(1929- ) US fan and bibliographer, also known as Fred Cook or Fred S Cook, who began to publish work of genre interest with Fred Cook's Index to the Wonder Group (1966),which indexes the following SF Magazines: Air Wonder Stories, Science Wonder Quarterly (see next item), Wonder Stories Quarterly, Science Wonder Stories (see ...
Lory, Robert
(1936-2020) US public relations adviser and author, who began publishing sf with "Rundown" for Worlds of If (see If) in May 1963; his stories were assembled as A Harvest of Hoodwinks (coll 1970 dos). His sf novels, mostly light, fantasy-laced adventures, are unambitious but competent; they include Identity Seven (1974), which involves Identity Exchange in various realities, and ...
Children in SF
In his essay "The Embarrassments of Science Fiction" (in Science Fiction at Large ed Peter Nicholls anth 1976; vt Explorations of the Marvellous 1978) Thomas M Disch asserts, tongue only partly in cheek, that sf is a branch of children's literature – because most lovers of the genre begin reading it in their early teens, and because many sf stories are about children. Whether or not ...
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 ...