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Sunday 14 June 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 8 June 2026
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Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author, active from around 1950, several of whose books focused on London, including Capital (1975), a complex set of era-switching meditations – including a Neanderthal man's thoughts about the future – on the deep mythos of the city. The novel influenced Michael Moorcock's Mother London (1988) (as the author acknowledged clearly), and similar later works by Iain ...
Firestarter
Film (1984). Universal. Directed by Mark L Lester. Written by Stanley Mann, based on Firestarter (1980) by Stephen King. Cast includes Drew Barrymore, Freddie Jones, David Keith, Heather Locklear, George C Scott and Martin Sheen. 114 minutes. Colour. / The novel is not one of King's best, but it hardly deserved this messy adaptation. A young girl, Charlie (Barrymore), has pyrotic powers and can start fires by mental concentration alone. ...
Tse, Dorothy
(1977- ) Hong Kong author, active from the turn of the century; her first collection, So Black [original Chinese title not traced] (coll 2005). Yīng tóu māo yŭ yīn yuè xiāng nǖ hái ["The Eagle-Headed Cat and the Music Box Girl"] (2020; trans Natascha Bruce as Owlish 2023) is set in a phantasmagoric City (clearly Hong Kong under surreal historical ...
Jimmy Olsen
DC Comics character (full name James Bartholomew Olsen), long-time close friend of Superman. He merits attention here because, among other reasons, he has occasionally been a Superhero. / Although an unnamed character in a 1938 Comic has been advanced as Olsen's first appearance, he was officially introduced by name in 1940 in the Radio ...
Suk, Sarah
(? - ) Canadian author of Young Adult fiction. She is of sf interest for The Space Between Here & Now (2023), a Time-Travel tale whose young protagonist's shifts to earlier parts of her own life are generated by smell; at one point she inhabits her own mother's Memories. This is taxing. Meet Me at Blue Hour ...
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 ...