SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 16 September 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.
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Top-Notch Comics
US Comic (1939-1942). 27 issues (#1-#27). M.L.J. Magazines Inc.. Artists include Al Camy, Warren King, Ed Smalle and Lin Streeter. Scriptwriters include Jack and Otto Binder (see Eando Binder), Joe Blair, Bob Montana and Harry Shorten. 68 pages. Usually 9 long strips, early issues also had a short text story; plus occasional short strips and non-fiction pieces as filler. Became Top-Notch Laugh Comics (1942-1944), 18 issues (#28-#45), discussed below. / ...
Cantrell, Christian
(1973- ) US software entrepreneur and author whose Near Future Children of Occam sequence beginning with Containment (2010) traverses various planets of our Solar System including Venus, which is under process of being occupied by Homo sapiens as Earth has been spoliated by Ecological degradation and ...
McKinley, Robin
(1952- ) US-born author, in UK for many years, married to Peter Dickinson from 1992 until his death, with whom she has written the Elementals fantasy sequence. For most of her early career she concentrated on fantasy, beginning with what may remain her most famous single tale, Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (1978), an early and influential Revisionist Fantasy [for that entry, for Robin ...
de Listonai, Mr
Attributed pseudonym of French author Daniel Jost de Villeneuve, whose full name may have been Daniel Jost de Villeneuve de Listonai (17??-17??); his Proto SF tale, Le Voyageur Philosophe dans un Pays Inconnu aux Inhabitants de la Terre (1761 2vols; trans Brian Stableford as The Philosophic Voyager in an Island Unknown to the Inhabitants of Earth 2015), carries its protagonist by space ship to the ...
Mastin, John
(1865-1932) UK author, clergyman and science popularizer, author of three Scientific Romances. The Stolen Planet (1906) features the picaresque adventures of two Earthmen who, after Earth has been shaken by a vast Disaster, undertake a Fantastic Voyage through the solar system and beyond, as narrated by Jervis Meredith, co-developer of an "aerostat" capable of ...
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 ...