SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 9 July 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 7 July 2025
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Religion
Familiar Definitions of SF imply that there is nothing more alien to its concerns than religion. However, many of the roots of Proto SF are embedded in traditions of speculative fiction closely associated with the religious imagination, and contemporary sf recovered a strong interest in certain mystical and transcendental themes and images when it moved beyond the Taboos imposed by the ...
Grattan-Smith, T E
(1871-1946) Australian ventriloquist, journalist and author of children's fiction (see Children's SF) born Thomas Edward Grattan Smith, using Grattan-Smith for his publishing activities. His Lost World novel, The Cave of a Thousand Columns (1938) exposes two young adventurers to Monsters and a non-human species known as the Birdmen in vast Underground ...
Wooding, Chris
(1977- ) UK author, usually for the Young Adult market, and usually fantasy or horror, including his first novel, Catchman (1998). His most successful singleton is probably The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray (2001), whose Amnesia-ridden protagonist possesses unknowingly the key to understanding a post-Pandemic crime-ridden London ...
Wright, Stephen
(1946- ) US author who remains best known for Meditations in Green (1983), a nonfantastic novel set in Vietnam; he is of direct sf interest for M31: A Family Romance (1988),a Fabulation in an agglutinative style reminiscent of that used by William Gaddis (1922-1998) in The Recognitions (1955). Abandoned by their parents – Dot and Dash, who claim to be Aliens descended ...
Donnie Darko
Film (2001). Newmarket in association with Pandora presents a Flower Films production. Written and directed by Richard Kelly. Cast includes Drew Barrymore, Daveigh Chase, Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Mary McDonnell, Holmes Osborne, Katharine Ross, Patrick Swayze and Noah Wyle. Original cut 113 minutes; 2004 Director's Cut 129 minutes. Colour. / A gifted teenage psychotic escapes a Fortean death ...
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 ...