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Saturday 11 April 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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Farris, Clelia
(1967- ) sf author from Italy who has won multiple awards for her work. Farris's interests are wide ranging, resulting in stories and novels about everything from Genetic Engineering and soul-transference to the Colonization of Other Worlds and Time Travel. The recurring motif of murder investigations (see ...
Steuart, John A
(1861-1932) Scottish-born editor and author, in Canada for some years, subsequently in England. The Club Stories assembled as The Jolly Pashas: The Story of an Unphilanthropic Society (coll of linked stories 1892) are essentially nonfantastic, or debunked [see Rationalized Fantasy in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. In the Day of Battle (1894) is a ...
Wakefield, Tom
(1935-1996) UK teacher and author, who wrote nonfiction about his teaching experiences at special schools in Hackney (an East London borough); his only novel of sf interest, The Love Siege (1979), also reflects his pedagogical experiences through its depiction of a Dystopian Near Future London where all "handicapped" children are condemned to extermination. The staff of the school revolts. ...
Alchemy
US Small Press magazine that paid a sufficiently high wordage rate to be classified as professional, though it did not have a wide circulation. It was published by Edgewood Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, edited by Steve Pasechnick and saw only three undated issues, published in 2003, 2004 and 2006. Published in review-size format, 88 pages, and comparatively expensive at $7, beautifully designed by Bryan Cholfin but with no internal ...
Swem, Charles Lee
(1893-1956) US journalist and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Mississippi Bearcat" in All-Story Weekly (see The All-Story) for 17 January 1920. He is of some sf interest for Werewolf (1928) (see Werewolves) which depicts the transformation of a normal human into a Supernatural Creature, seemingly through the use of a mysterious ...
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 ...