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Wednesday 18 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. ...
Lucian
(circa 125 CE-after 180 CE) Syrian-Greek author, known also as Lucian of Samosata; born in Samosata, capital of Commagene, in Syria (now modern Turkey). He early became an advocate and practised at Antioch, but soon set out on the travels which were to help provide the verisimilitude underlying the fantastic surface of some of his works. He visited Greece, Italy and Gaul, studied philosophy in Athens, and eventually became procurator of part of Egypt, ...
Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award
Sf/fantasy/horror Award which honours the best first novel of the year, as voted by members of the US Baltimore area's annual Convention, Balticon. It is named for Compton Crook (1908-1981), who published sf as Stephen Tall. The award was first presented in 1983 for work first published in 1982. An additional prize of, currently, $1000 goes to the winner. [DRL] Winners 1983: Donald ...
Mackelworth, R W
(1930-2000) UK author and insurance salesman who began publishing sf with "The Statue" for New Worlds in January 1963 and produced some above-average sf adventure novels, usually involving complex but rarely jumbled plotting, and an Earth somehow in danger. They include Firemantle (1968; vt The Diabols 1969), Tiltangle (1970), in which melodramatic Climate Change has confined humanity to ...
Trevor, Ralph
Pseudonym of UK author James Reginald Wilmot (1897-1944), active for nine years as a crime novelist before his early death; he also wrote as by Frances Stuart. He is of minor sf interest for The Ghost Counts Ten (1938), a thriller featuring a heat-melting Ray. [JC]
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 ...