SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 9 February 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 6 February 2026
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Sallis, James
(1944-2026) US musician, poet and author, briefly active in New Worlds during its Michael Moorcock-directed New-Wave phase; he began to publish work of genre interest in this context with "Kazoo" (August 1967 New Worlds) and co-edited the magazine 1968-1969. His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work ...
Thien, Madeleine
(1974- ) Canadian author, active from 2000 or before; her early work, all nonfantastic, established her as an author of cultural significance whose novels – like Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016) – feelingly and with a mature grasp of storytelling unpack the complex quasi-diasporal life of the vast cohort of people who must braid multi-cultural lives in lands that are "theirs" but not theirs. Thien herself is ...
Cane, Nancy
Pseudonym of US romance author Nancy J Cohen (1948- ), best known under her own name for the Bad Hair Day sequence of nonfantastic mysteries beginning with Permed to Death (1999) and continuing for many volumes [not here listed]. Her first work of sf interest, the Light-Years Trilogy beginning with Circle of Light (1994), is a Space Opera engaging many race in interstellar ...
Ludington, James
(1827-1891) US entrepreneur, Utopian thinker and developer, and author; the city of Ludington, Michigan was developed by Ludington according to his arguments about the natural (i.e. rational) construction of an ideal place to live. His novel, Various revelations: With an account of the Garden of Eden, and the Settlement of the Eastern Continent, as Related by the Leaders of the Wandering Tribes [for full subtitle see Checklist] (1876) as Anonymous ...
World of Giants
US tv series (1959; also known as W-O-G). Ziv Television Programs. Created by Dick Dorso. Produced by William Alland and Otto Lang. Various directors. Cast includes Arthur Franz, Marcia Henderson and Marshall Thompson. One season of thirteen 30-minute episodes. Black and white. / Mel Hunter (Thompson) is a Federal agent who on a past secret mission beyond the Iron Curtain became the victim of atomic radiation and suffered permanent ...
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 ...