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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 ...
Barr, John A
(1855-1907) New Zealand solicitor and author who also wrote as by R W Brock and Gilbert Rock; after proving unable to meet his costs on a property development, he left New Zealand, unfortunately for his reputation departing before the transfer of his obligations had been properly established in law. The Crime of the Golden Gully: An Australian Romance (1888) as by Gilbert Rock, an adventure tale centring on the discovery of a gold mine, edges towards the fantastic. Of more sf ...
Baker, Henry
(1698-1774) Naturalist and early microscopist, one of the founders of the Society of Arts in 1754; the father-in-law of Daniel Defoe. He was the author of an epic poem, The Universe (1727), the subtitle of which proclaims its intended aim "to restrain the pride of Man". This is something Baker attempts by striving repeatedly for what we might call a Sense of Wonder ("Amazing Thought! What Mortal can conceive!") ...
I Was a Teenage Werewolf
Film (1957; vt Blood of the Werewolf). Sunset Productions, American International Pictures. Produced by Herman Cohen. Directed by Gene Fowler, Jr. Written by Cohen and Abel Kandel (credited as Ralph Thornton). Makeup by Phillip Scheer (credited as Philip Scheer). Cast includes Whit Bissell, Michael Landon, Yvonne Lime and Charles Wilcox (credited as Tony Marshall). 76 minutes. Black and white. / As the film begins, ...
Artzybasheff, Boris
(1899-1965) Ukraine-born US illustrator who fled to the US after the Russian Revolution. Although much of his prodigious output – he painted over 200 covers for Time magazine – had a fantasticated feel to it, only a small portion is directly relevant to the fantastic genres. Most notable among these are his cover for the 1926 US reissue of E R Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros (1922) and his set of interior ...
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 ...