SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 8 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 7 July 2025
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Duble, Kathleen Benner
(1958- ) US author for Young Adult audiences, whose only book of strong sf interest is her first, Bridging Beyond (2002), in which "genetic memories" generated by her great-grandmother afflict a teenage girl. [JC]
Francis, Richard
(1945- ) UK academic and author, who added to some books an empty middle-initial "H" to distinguish himself from Dick Francis (1920-2010), the thriller writer. His first novel, Blackpool Vanishes (1979), tells the quirky, extremely English story of what happens when microscopic Aliens kidnap the town of Blackpool. In Whispering Gallery (1984) the Invention of a link between bacteria and ...
Allston, Aaron
(1960-2014) US author and Role Playing Game designer who published many nonfiction pieces in this area, was editor of Space Gamer magazine 1982-1983, and co-designed the games Justice, Inc (1984) and The Savage Empire (1990) (see Worlds of Ultima). Several though not all of his novels are tied to the Star Wars universe ...
Peck, Wallace
Pseudonym of the unidentified US author (? -? ) of The Golden Age of Patents: A Parody on Yankee Inventiveness (1888 chap), which describes a series of spoof Inventions, sometimes with an effect of Satire, though some Yankee inspirations are narrated as tall tales. The illustrations are amusing. [JC]
Langley, Patrick
(? - ) UK journalist, editor and author who is of sf interest for his first novel, Arkady (2018), set in a somewhat abstracted Near Future world, partly in an unnamed London, from which a poisonously Dystopian government oppresses a land increasingly transformed by Climate Change. Dreams of Arcadia shape the ...
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 ...