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Friday 13 December 2024
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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Steere, C A
(? -? ) US author of When Things Were Doing (1908), whose protagonist is transported to a Near Future where, in command of millions of socialists, he becomes President of the United States, and creates a Utopia there; the novel is comic in tone. Unfortunately, President Bill awakens from this dream. [JC]
Donatti, Louis
According to the evidence of his only novel, a Slovenia-born functionary and author (1781-1852) who in 1805 served in a junior position with Sir William Hoste (1780-1828), a fabulously successful naval Captain in the Napoleonic Wars; from 1806-1831 he was with the British Commissariat in Messina, and for some years in the 1830s in Canada as "deputy-assistant-commissary-general", an experience which caused him to suggest that any future Canadian government should be entirely bilingual; he is ...
Friendship's Death
UK film (1987). British Film Institute / Channel 4 / Modelmark. Written and directed by Peter Wollen (1938-2019), based on his story "Friendship's Death" (Spring 1976 Bananas). Cast includes Patrick Bauchau, Ruby Baker, Bill Paterson and Tilda Swinton. 78 minutes. Colour. / In 1970, a female Android named Friendship (Swinton) is sent on a peace mission to Earth, but misses her intended target of MIT, and lands in Jordan during ...
Ellsworth, Spencer
(? - ) US teacher and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Mount Rainier Considers its Mental Health" in Brain Harvest for 9 December 2009. He is of sf interest primarily for the Starfire sequence beginning with Starfire: A Red Peace (2017) being Space Opera set in a riven Galactic Empire; its protagonist finds an ancient artefact (see ...
Brown, Fredric
(1906-1972) US author of detective novels and much sf, and for many years active in journalism. He is perhaps best known for such detective novels as The Fabulous Clipjoint (1947), which won an Edgar Award, but is also highly regarded for his sf, which is noted for its elegance and Humour, and for a polished slickness not generally found in the field in 1941, the year he published his first sf story, "Not Yet the End" (Winter 1941 ...
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 ...