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Thursday 11 December 2025
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 8 December 2025
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Bovell, Andrew
(1962- ) Australian playwright, also active as a screenwriter, his credits in the latter capacity including a screenplay for the 2010 film version of Edge of Darkness (1985), a UK television tale in six parts in which the government has colluded with a multinational corporation to construct a highly-toxic nuclear power plant almost certain to instigate toxic pollution. Of his numerous plays, When the Rain Stops Falling ...
Time Machine
One of the early key items of sf Terminology, first used by H G Wells in the title of The Time Machine (1895). It is, of course, a Machine designed for Time Travel. Less famous predecessors are Edward Page Mitchell's fantasy "The Clock that Went Backward" (September 1881 The Sun anon) – seemingly the first ...
Gudynas, Peter
(1954- ) British artist, long a resident of Birmingham, though he has also lived in London; his childhood fondness for sf books, films, and television programs inspired a lifelong interest in the genre. A BA in Graphic Design from Lanchester Polytechnic (now called Coventry University) led in 1976 to his first assignment to paint sf book covers, for Panther, and he went on to produce covers for many other British and American publishers, including ...
Presland, John
Pseudonym of Australian poet, playwright and author Gladys Williams Skelton Bendit (1885-1975), in UK from early adulthood; she signed at least one novel, the nonfantastic Barricade (1926) as by John Presland and Gladys Skelton. Escape Me – Never! (1928) is set in the Near Future. Some of her poetry, like "Wisdom and Youth" in The Deluge and Other Poems (coll 1911) the long quasi-dramatic "The Quest" and others ...
Newman, John [2]
(? - ) US academic and librarian who was credited as Special Collections Librarian at Colorado State University Libraries when he began to publish work of genre interest with a two-part Bibliography of Future War fiction, "America at War: Horror Stories for a Society" in Extrapolation for December 1974 and May 1975. This work led to the ...
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 ...