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Friday 20 June 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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Forsyth, Frederick
(1938-2025) UK author who gained fame with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), and whose books are generally political thrillers. The Shepherd (1975 chap), however, is a sentimental Timeslip or ghost fantasy in which a pilot on Christmas Eve 1957 is saved from crashing by a World War Two pilot in an antique bomber: pilot and plane had been shot down on the Christmas Eve of 1943. ...
Rammellzee
(1960-2010) US multi-disciplinary artist whose work covered performance art, rap, graffiti, painting, sculptor and comics. He drew on history, science, sf and popular culture to shape a mythology to inspire his artwork. An African-American/Italian who kept his real name secret, Rammellzee was part of New York's burgeoning rap and graffiti culture as it evolved in the late seventies, becoming a member of the city's underground art scene – which included the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, ...
Pavlou, Stel
(1970- ) UK screenwriter and author who did the script for The 51st State (2001), about a Drug fifty-one times more powerful than anything previously marketed; of more direct sf interest is Decipher (2001), set in Near Future Antarctica, where drillers discover a new Power Source, arousing Aliens from space while ...
Payson, William Farquhar
(1876-1939) US author whose explanation, in John Vytal: A Tale of the Lost Colony (1901), of the disappearance around 1584 of the inhabitants of Roanoke Island (in what would become the state of Virginia) is made into a tale with Lost Race implications. [JC]
Temple, William F
(1914-1989) UK author who began his activities in the sf world before World War Two as an active fan, a member of the British Interplanetary Society and editor of its Bulletin, and a flatmate of Arthur C Clarke. He began to publish work of genre interest with "The Kosso" in Thrills (anth 1935) edited anonymously by Charles Birkin (1907-1986), a Horror in SF tale in which a tree, given ...
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 ...