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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.
Site updated on 12 May 2025
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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 ...
Overland Monthly, The
US magazine whose first editor was Bret Harte (who resigned in January 1871), published in San Francisco by A Roman & Co, monthly, July 1868-December 1875, then again January 1883-July 1935. Under the editorship of Millicent Washburn Shinn (1858-1940) a special "Twentieth Century" issue – June 1890 – contained articles and essays all directly related to Edward Bellamy's then much discussed work ...
Cartmill, Cleve
(1908-1964) US author and journalist; co-inventor of the Blackmill system of high-speed typography. He began publishing work of genre interest with "Oscar" for Unknown in February 1941, and several short Fantasy novels, also in Unknown; one of these, "Hell Hath Fury" (August 1943 Unknown), was featured in the George Hay anthology of the same title ...
Rathbone, Julian
(1935-2008) UK author – a great-nephew of the actor Basil Rathbone (1892-1967) – who concentrated almost exclusively on detective and historical fiction, but whose Trajectories (1998) is a movingly deracinated take on the UK of 2035, a Dystopia in which ethnic minorities are oppressed, travel restricted, and all media are under the control of central government (see Media Landscape). That this portrait ...
Barron, D G
(1922-2000) UK architect and author. In The Zilov Bombs (1962), unilateral UK nuclear disarmament has led to Soviet domination of all Europe (see Politics); after five years (by 1973) the underground is putting pressure on characters like the narrator, who ultimately solves his moral anxieties by detonating one of the eponymous devices, assassinating some Communist tyrants. [JC]
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 ...