SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 17 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 ...
Bramah, Ernest
Working name of UK author Ernest Brammah Smith (1868-1942) for all his writing; he is best-known for two series, the Max Carrados sequence [see Checklist below] about a blind detective, all of whose Perceptions (except of course sight) are enormously enhanced by rigorous training; and a series of tales in which the Chinese Kai Lung displays his skills as a professional story-teller – often to stave off some unpleasant fate, like Scheherazade. ...
Vielle, E E
(1913-2015) UK aviator, Royal Air Force officer (1934-1957) and author, known in his military capacity as Tubby Vielle; he was instrumental in the development of improved navigation and bombing systems in World War Two; he also wrote as by Donald Gordon and as by Paul Stanton. Village of Stars (1960) writing with David Beaty as by Paul Stanton is a Near-Future nuclear-World War Three thriller. His novels with Ian ...
Mandel, George
(1920-2021) US Comics artist who drew some Superhero figures including The Woman in Red – first seen in Thrilling Comics #2 (March 1940) and identified as the first female masked crime-fighter – Black Marvel for Timely and Blue Bolt for Novelty, until he was badly wounded in World War Two. / Mandel then turned to writing, beginning with the early Beat novel ...
Popular Science Fiction
Australian thin (64pp) Digest-size saddle-stapled magazine. Six issues, undated but July 1953 to March 1955, published by Frew Publications, Sydney; editor not named, but Ronald Forster. It published primarily reprints from US pulps but included some new Australian material by Norma K Hemming and, surprisingly, by US authors, particularly in the final issue which was almost all new material, by Sam ...
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 ...