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Saturday 14 March 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 9 March 2026
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Toombs, Robert T
(? - ) Almost certainly a pseudonym; no identity has been suggested for this name, which is attached to a series of five short Edisonades featuring Electric Bob, beginning with Electric Bob and His White Alligator; Or, Hunting for Confederate Treasure in the Mississippi River (1893 chap), in the New York Five Cent Library series of novellas published by Street and Smith. Electric Bob is a spoof ...
Pi
Film (1998), also written π. Harvest Filmworks, Truth and Soul and Plantain Films present in association with Protozoa Pictures. Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Written by Darren Aronofsky, Sean Gullette and Eric Watson. Cast includes Sean Gullette, Pamela Hart, Kristyn Mae-Anne Lao, Mark Margolis, Stephen Pearlman, Ben Shenkman and Samia Shoaib. 84 minutes. Black and white. / Gifted mathematician Maximillian Cohen (Gullette) builds in his ...
Abel, R Cox
(1912-2001) UK aviation researcher (for the Hawker Siddeley group of aircraft manufacturing companies) and author who designed a fictional Ion Drive for his collaborative novel Trivana I (1966) with Charles Barren. The titular Spaceship's mission is to colonize Venus (see Colonization of Other Worlds). [DRL]
Shea, Michael
(1938-2009) Scottish diplomat and author, press secretary to the Queen between 1978 and 1987; it has been suggested that he left this post under a cloud for having exhibited candour. His fiction – about twenty novels in all – more safely conveys his wry, politically centrist point of view. As Michael Sinclair (his given names) he wrote a Near-Future thriller in which shameless entrepreneurs manipulate international money markets, ...
Moore, Fiona
(1974- ) Canadian academic and author, in the UK from before 2005; in her nonfiction she specializes in the "international business", and is Professor of Business Anthropology in the University of London (see Anthropology).. She is of sf interest initially for nonfiction studies in Television series, beginning with Liberation: The Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to Blake's 7 (2003) with Alan ...
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 ...