SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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 ...
Laika
UK indie-rock band founded in 1993 by US-born musician and singer Margaret Fiedler McGinnis (1967- ) and UK bass-guitarist John Frenett (1970- ) and named (of course) for the first mammal to orbit the earth. The group's complexly rhythmic, slippery, hypnotic music manifests a persistent fascination with outer space. The band's first release, Silver Apples of the Moon (1995) – this album has no relation to Morton ...
Martin, Stuart
(1881-1947) Scottish journalist and author of fiction for boys, active from about 1919, his first long tale being "Pirates of the Main" (5 January-5 April 1924 The Scout). "Devilman of the Deep" (7 April-26 May 1934 Scoops), published anonymously and not collected in book form, features adventures amid a civilization Under the Sea whose Power Source is volcanic energy. ...
Butler, Octavia E
(1947-2006) US author who began publishing sf with "Crossover" in Clarion (anth 1971) edited by Robin Scott Wilson, but who made no real impact on the sf field until the appearance of the Patternist sequence, all released in the publisher's Doubleday Science Fiction series: Patternmaster (1976), Mind of My Mind (1977), Survivor (1978), Wild Seed (1980) and ...
Rossmann, John F
(1942- ) US author of the Mind Masters sequence, beginning with The Mind Masters (1974), in which a Vietnam vet, whose ESP powers have been activated by trauma, joins a secret organization whose goal is to prevent the powers-that-be from subverting research into paranormal phenomena; as the series progresses, Equipoisal shifts between sf and supernatural horror weaken its occasional strengths. 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 ...