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Saturday 26 April 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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Broderick, Damien
(1944-2025) Australian author, editor and critic; he had a PhD in the semiotics of fiction, science and sf with special reference to the work of Samuel R Delany. He edited four anthologies of Australian sf: The Zeitgeist Machine (anth 1977), Strange Attractors (anth 1985), Matilda at the Speed of Light (anth 1988) and Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (anth ...
Bailey, Robin Wayne
(1952- ) US author, who often publishes as Robin Bailey or Robin W Bailey; almost all his work is fantasy [a small selection is listed below], beginning with the Frost sequence which opens with Frost (1983). Much of his infrequent sf, mostly Military SF tales previously printed in various anthologies edited or co-edited by Martin H Greenberg, is assembled in ...
Besant, Walter
(1836-1901) UK author known primarily for his work outside the sf field; one of the main founders of the Society of Authors in 1884. His early novels were written in collaboration with James Rice (1843-1882); their The Case of Mr Lucraft and Other Tales (coll 1876 2vols) contains several fantasies, including the novella-length "The Case of Mr Lucraft" (27 October-10 November 1875 The World) about a man who leases out his appetite. The Revolt of Man (1882 anon) ...
Okorafor, Nnedi
Working name of US academic and author Nnedimma Okorafor-Mbachu (1974- ), whose Igbo parents had emigrated to America in 1969 but from her early childhood often returned with her to Nigeria, a complex upbringing reflected throughout her writing career; she began to publish work of genre interest with "The Palm Tree Bandit", in Strange Horizons for 11 December 2000. From the first, her work has interwoven traditional sf topoi with ...
Ford, Jeffrey
(1955- ) US teacher and author, most of whose work has been fantasy and horror (but see Horror in SF), though his intimately knowledgable and sophisticated use of the toolkits of Fantastika make it impossible to affix any dominant label to his oeuvre; his tales, mostly narrated by an immanent and sometimes visible Ford-like story-teller, permeate and are permeated by the conversant web (or mycelium) of 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 ...