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Wednesday 6 December 2023
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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 4 December 2023
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Compton, D G
(1930-2023) UK author, born of parents who were both in the theatre; he increasingly lived in the USA after 1981. As Guy Compton, he published some unremarkable detective novels, beginning with Too Many Murderers (1962), and as by Frances Lynch produced some nonfantastic Gothics throughout his career; but soon turned to sf with tales almost always set in the Near Future, and anatomizing moral dilemmas within that arena: the future is very clearly ...
London, Jack
Working name of US author John Griffith London (1876-1916), known primarily for his work outside the sf field. After leaving school at the age of 14, London spent seven years of adventure and hardship as an oyster pirate, sailor, hobo, prisoner and Klondike gold-seeker. During this period, he gave himself an education steeped in the most influential scientific and philosophic theories of the late nineteenth century – Darwinism (see Evolution; ...
Mammay, Michael
(? - ) US army officer (now retired) and author who has specialized in Military SF, primarily the Planetside sequence beginning with Planetside (2016), where a retired army officer is asked to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a politician's son from a Space Station orbiting a planet ruined by War, though it continues to harbour ...
Royal, Matthew J
(1863-1900) Canadian teacher and author of The Isle of the Virgins: A Romance (1899; cut vt The Unknown Island; Or, The Isle of the Virgins 1905), a Lost Race Utopia set on an Island where women – descended from ancient Romans – dominate; men are allowed to mate only within the framework of a game (see Games and Sports) run by their ...
Sci Fi Files, The
US tv mini-series (1997). The Sci Fi Channel. Produced by Peter Swain. Directed by Swain, and Chris Lethbridge. Narrator: Mark Hamill. Four 60-minute episodes. Colour. / This documentary mini-series examined the development of sf – chiefly in Cinema form – since the very early twentieth century, focusing initially on such films as Frankenstein (1931) and Metropolis ...
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. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and sf ...