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Friday 22 September 2023
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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Sherman, David
(1944-2022) US professional soldier and author whose military experiences during active service in Vietnam shaped his writing career, beginning with a nonfantastic series, the Night Fighters sequence [not listed below], which is centred on US Marines in Vietnam. Of sf interest is the Military SF Starfist series beginning with First to Fight (1997) with Dan Cragg (1939- ), which is set in ...
Klaatu
Canadian pop band, most famous for their song "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft", on the album 3:47 EST (1976), which was notably covered by the Carpenters. More interesting is the band's second release, Hope (1977), a concept album about humanity's near-future encounter with the last survivor of the ancient Venusian "Politzanian" empire. After providing a rapid tour of the cosmos (track 3 is called "Around the Universe in Eighty Days") this survivor dies, ...
Fischer, P J
(? - ) US author whose first novel Julia and the Dream Maker (2003) – first of a projected series – follows three young experimenters whose discoveries lead to AI and portals into other worlds. [JC]
York, J Steven
(1957- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Starbird" (in L Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume V, anth 1989, ed Algis Budrys), and who concentrated on Ties for various enterprises: for the Marvel Comics Generation X series beginning with Generation X: Crossroads (1998); for the ...
Maillu, David G
(1939- ) Kenyan author of dozens of popular novels. He is among the most productive and influential writers in East Africa, writing mainly popular genre novels and young adult books. He entered school only at the age of twelve and after studying at Salvation Army schools, finished his education at O level. He started writing in the early 1960s, but his first stories appeared only a decade later, and shortly after he established his first publishing company, Comb Books. It ...
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. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began publishing sf reviews in 1964 and sf proper with "A Man Must Die" in New Worlds for ...