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Sunday 12 July 2026
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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Invention
This thematic topic is closely linked to that of Discovery (which see), but has a considerably broader scope since sf inventions are not necessarily based on brand-new discoveries but can result from a synthesis of existing principles by Scientists, Mad Scientists, or (frequently) a Common Man with a lucky insight. Further entries with substantial discussion of inventions include ...
Wilder, Cherry
Pseudonym of New Zealand-born author Cherry Barbara Grimm (1930-2002), in Australia 1954-1976, in Germany until 1997, then in New Zealand until her death. After publishing short fiction and poetry she turned to sf, and chose the name Wilder. The themes of her first published sf story, "The Ark of James Carlyle" in New Writings in SF 24 (anth 1974) edited by Kenneth Bulmer, are the gradual rapprochement of, and ...
Louvish, Simon
(1947- ) Scottish author, in Israel 1949-1968, now in London; best known for a series of biographies of Cinema figures like Charlie Chaplin and Cecil B DeMille (none listed below). His Avram Blok sequence beginning with The Therapy of Avram Blok (1985) is a surreal, occasionally rampaging picaresque whose earlier instalments verge, if only metaphorically, into the fantastic; the topoi of ...
Ball, F N
(?1909-? ) UK author of a Utopia, Metatopia (1961), featuring population control and meritocratic focus on the university system as the best source of good governance. [JC]
Weaver, Wertie Clarice
(? -? ) US teacher and author, a founder of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority in 1913, who used her experience as an African American to focus the intensity of her Utopia, The Valley of the Poor (1945), in which racial prejudice (see Race in SF) has been cured medically. [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 ...