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Tuesday 13 May 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.
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Fabian, Stephen E
(1930-2025) American artist, sometimes credited as Steve Fabian or simply Fabian. The self-trained Fabian first worked as an electronic engineer, but he began contributing art to Fanzines in the late 1960s and became a full-time professional artist in 1973. He did a number of covers and interior art for SF Magazines, mostly Amazing, Fantastic, and ...
Mitchell, Nicole
(1967- ) US flautist and composer, a member and past chair of Chicago's influential Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). As with many members of that organization, her prolific body of work bridges jazz, improvisation and classical composition. Her first sf-related works were a trilogy inspired by the writings of Octavia E Butler, all credited to Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble: Xenogenesis Suite ...
Ransom, Bill
(1945- ) US author who has worked as a medic and as a firefighter. His early writing was poetry, with several volumes released from Finding True North & Critter (coll 1974 chap) onward. He began publishing sf anonymously with "Songs of a Sentient Flute" in Analog for February 1979, a collaboration with Frank Herbert published as by Herbert alone: Ransom wrote the first draft at Herbert's ...
Raife, Raymond
Pseudonym of an insecurely identified author, possibly Benjamin Hayward (? -? ), active from before 1900 in the magazines with most of his work 1908-1927 appearing in Boy's Own Paper (see Boys' Papers). Of sf interest are The Sheik's White Slave: Being an Account of the Unravelling of the Mysteries of the Temple of Djaramos (1895), a Lost Race tale set in North Africa, and ...
Gallagher, Stephen
(1954- ) UK scriptwriter and author who signed some of his early work Steve Gallagher. He first came to prominence with sf scripts, notably his Radio series The Last Rose of Summer (1977), which he adapted as his first novel, The Last Rose of Summer (1978; rev vt Dying of Paradise 1983 as by Stephen Couper) and its sequel, Hunter's Moon (1980), which he novelized as The Ice Belt ...
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 ...