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Friday 16 October 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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Edwards, Malcolm
(1949-2026) UK editor, critic and publisher, educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in anthropology. Active in UK sf Fandom in the 1970s and early 1980s, he published the first complete text of James Blish's "The Science in Science Fiction" (May 1951-May 1952 Science Fiction Quarterly) in his Fanzine Quicksilver #2 in 1971; edited the ...
Greg, Percy
(1837-1889) UK poet, historian and author, son of the prolific essayist William Rathbone Greg (1809-1881); Greg also wrote as Lionel G Holdreth. His first work of genre interest is "Guy Neville's Ghost" for Blackwood's in March 1865; the nonfiction The Devil's Advocate (1878 2vols) contains some speculative material. His important early sf novel, Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record, Deciphered, Translated and Edited by P G (1880 2vols) (see ...
Birkenhead, The Earl of
Title and working name of UK lawyer, politician and author Frederick Edwin Smith (1872-1930), an upwardly-mobile, hugely energetic and ambitious Tory, the kind of figure who informs much of the work of John Buchan and who dies (in Buchan's work and in life) from overwork; he was ennobled upon becoming Lord Chancellor in 1919. He is of sf interest for the surprising combination of sober prescience and tomfoolery in the nonfiction 100 Years from Now ... ...
Souvestre, Émile
(1806-1854) French teacher, journalist and author whose seeming Utopia, Le Monde Tel Qu'il Sera (1846; trans Margaret Clarke as The World as It Shall Be 2004), gives a complexly Satirical portrait of the world its protagonists have attained via a lengthy period of death-like Suspended Animation, making their Sleeper-Awakes revival in ...
X [tv]
Japanese animated tv series (2001-2002; vt X/1999). Madhouse. Based on the Manga by CLAMP. Directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Written by Yuki Enatsu. Voice cast includes Aya Hisakawa, Motoko Kumai, Houko Kuwashima, Mitsuaki Madono, Mamiko Noto, Junichi Suwabe and Kenichi Suzumura. 24 24-minute episode plus one OVA. Colour. / Tokyo, 1999: a final confrontation is imminent between two groups of ...
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 ...