SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 14 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
Sponsor of the day: David Cowhig
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 ...
Allen, Johannes
(1916-1973) Danish journalist and author of popular fiction and film scripts from about 1941. Among his few sf titles the best known is Data for din død (1970; trans Marianne Helweg as Data for Death 1971), which tells of a criminal organization whose acquisition of advanced Computer techniques permits it to blackmail people with information about their time of death. [ND]
Buckley, Kathleen
(1943- ) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with The Alien Trace (1984) with Sharon Jarvis, the two authors writing together as H M Major; this and its successor Time Twister (1984), also with Jarvis and as by Major, form the mildly erotic Alien Trace sf sequence. Buckley has also published some short Horror fiction under her own name, beginning with ...
Smith, William Wye
(1827-1917) UK-born minister, teacher, journalist, poet and author, in Canada from the age of ten, active as a poet from 1850. He is of sf interest for Vetulia: or, Going to the Bottom of Things (first version August 1875 New Dominion Monthly as "First Visit to Vetulia"; full text 1880 Advertiser: rev 1891), a Utopia whose social structure is shaped around the Immortality of its inhabitants. The long ...
Tatami Galaxy, The
Japanese animated tv series (2010). Original title Yojōhan Shinwa Taikei. Based on the novel Yojōhan Shinwa Taikei ["4.5 Mat Mythical Chronicles"] (2008; vt The Tatami Galaxy) by Tomihiko Morimi. Madhouse. Directed by Masaaki Yuasa. Written by Makoto Ueda. Voice cast includes Shintarō Asanuma, Keiji Fujiwara, Maaya ...
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 ...