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Sunday 7 December 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 1 December 2025
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Sternbach, Rick
Working name of American artist Richard Michael Sternbach (1951- ), born in Connecticut. He left the University of Connecticut after three years to begin working as an artist and garnered his first sf assignment in 1973, for the October 1973 issue of Analog, illustrating G Harry Stine's article "A Program for Space Flight" with interior art and a cover depicting two spherical spacecraft near an enormous planet. ...
Szal, Jeremy
(1995- ) Australian editor, politician and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Aliens Ate My Anti-Grav Speeder" in Robot and Raygun for April 2014. Although his first novel Stormblood (2020) may accurately be described as Military SF set in an interstellar Space Opera venue, the heart of the tale revolves more intimately around the protagonist and his companions' ...
Lockhart-Ross, H S
(1856-1935) UK author of Hamtura: A Tale of an Unknown Land (1892), set in a Lost World Archipelago in the South Pacific, where two lost races are at war with each other. His surname has also been given as simply Ross. [JC]
New York
Great Cities may seem immemorial, but normally boast at least one named founder. Romulus and Remus founded Rome, or so the story tells us. Frankus, who was of Trojan birth, founded Paris, it is said. The Yellow Emperor, who revered the earth beneath his feet, founded Beijing 5,000 years ago. London was traditionally founded, or its founding was attended, by the giants Gog and Magog, first instanced as the single giant Gogmagog or Goemagot ...
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 ...