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Saturday 14 March 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.
Site updated on 9 March 2026
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Rollins, Frank West
(1860-1915) US lawyer, banker, politician and author whose Break O'Day Tales (coll 1894) includes "The Steam Interlude", a reminiscence from 1945 of the worldwide Disaster in 1905 when water no longer turns to steam, threatening to end civilization. [JC]
Reid, C Lestock
(1888-1954) India-born UK army officer and author, in active service during World War One. His adventure novels include The Trail of Pharaoh's Treasure: A Romance of Africa (1924); Sons of Solomon (1931), a Lost Race tale also set in Africa, sadly defaced for modern readers by its racism (see Race in SF); and Dark Destiny (1936). ...
Grazier, James
(1902-1975) US author whose Hydra (1969) is a routine Young Adult tale, and in whose awkwardly written Runts of 61 Cygni C (1970) humans encounter approximately humanoid Aliens – they are one-eyed – and lots of kinky Sex on the planet 61 Cygni C. [JC]
Lowell, Percival
(1855-1916) US astronomer, best known for making the calculations which led, in 1931, to the discovery of the purported ninth planet, Pluto (see Outer Planets), though that distant world is no longer regarded as a genuine planet; its name was chosen in part because its first two letters were Lowell's initials. While he wrote no works which could be regarded as genuine sf, Lowell contributed immeasurably to the genre when he built upon the observations of ...
Near Dark
Film (1987). F/M and Near Dark Joint Venture. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Written by Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Red. Cast includes Jenette Goldstein, Lance Henriksen, Joshua John Miller, Adrian Pasdar, Bill Paxton, Tim Thomerson and Jenny Wright. 94 minutes. Colour. / In a small town at night in the deepest Oklahoma, young Caleb Colton (Pasdar) picks up the extremely attractive Mae (Wright), amiably expecting sex; but she is undead and bites his neck, turning him into a starter ...
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 ...