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Friday 18 July 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.
Site updated on 16 July 2025
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Williams, Tess
(1954-2025) UK-born teacher, editor and author, in Australia for many years, there receiving a degree in literature from Curtin University and an MA in creative writing from the University of Western Australia. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Padwan Affair" in She's Fantastical (anth 1995) edited by Judith Raphael Buckrich and Lucy Sussex. Of sf interest are two novels: Map of Power (1996), set mostly in a ...
Anthony, Patricia
(1947-2013) US teacher and author who began publishing sf with "Blood Brothers" for Aboriginal, February/March 1987. Her first published – though fourth completed – novel, Cold Allies (1993), aroused considerable interest for its fast and sophisticated plotting; its hard-nosed liberal take on the moral quagmires that complicate human actions during a Near Future Lebensraum war – between the ...
Ardrey, Robert
(1908-1980) US playwright, screenwriter, speculative journalist and author known mainly for his theatrical work, initially for such plays as Thunder Rock (performed 1939; 1940), a ghost story set in a lighthouse on Lake Michigan, to which the protagonist has retreated because what seems to be a very Near Future world is too much for him; his ultimate gaining of resolve proved very popular in England as ...
Space Busters
US Comic (1952). Two issues. Approved Comics, Inc (see Ziff-Davis). Artists include Allen Anderson, Murphy Anderson, Bernie Krigstein and Norman Saunders. Three Space Busters and one other strip per issue, plus 2-3 short non-fiction pieces. / With the opening Space Busters tale most of our Solar System has been conquered (see ...
Once a Hero
US tv series (1987). Garden Party Productions/New World International for ABC-TV. Created by Dusty Kay. Produced by Paul Pompian, and others. Directors included Harry Hurwitz, Kevin Hooks, and Claudia Weill. Writers included Ira Steven Behr and Kay. Cast includes Robert Forster, Jeff Lester and Milo O'Shea. Five 60-minute episodes. Colour. / Comics writer Abner Bevis (O'Shea) finds himself repeating his own plots for his ...
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 ...