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Sunday 7 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.
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Saxton, Josephine
(1935-2023) UK author who began publishing sf with "The Wall" in Science Fantasy #78 for November 1965, and whose first three novels – The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith (1969), Vector for Seven: The Weltanschaung of Mrs Amelia Mortimer and Friends [sic] (1970) and Group Feast (1971) – established her very rapidly as an inventive creator of sf Fabulations. ...
Szabó-Zalán, Nicholas
(?1886-? ) Hungarian author, in active service during World War One, seemingly in Argentina from some point around 1945, after Hungary began to slip into the grasp of the USSR. Mission to Earth (1955) – whose apparent subtitle, The Book of Many Colours, appears only on the dust jacket – presents a kind of sacred drama in terms of a roughshod Equipoise. The ...
Antonelli, Lou
(1957-2021) US journalist, editor and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Silvern" in RevolutionSF for June 2003, followed by his first professional sale "A Rocket for the Republic" in Asimov's for September 2005; he eventually published some 125 short stories. Many of these are Tall Tales [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] set in a fantasticated Texas, a dozen ...
McCay, Bill
Working name of US author William McCay (? - ), who has exclusively restricted himself to Ties. They include two titles in the fourth Tom Swift sequence (see Tom Swift): The Black Dragon (1991) and The Negative Zone (1992), both as by Victor Appleton; three Nintendo Adventure Books: Monster Mix-Up (1991), ...
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 ...