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Tuesday 24 June 2025
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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Cassiday, Bruce
(1920-2005) US editor and author, who worked as editor with various Pulp-magazine publishers (mainly Popular Publications) and for Argosy from the May 1955 issue for some years. He wrote nonfiction under his own name, and fiction under various pseudonyms and/or House Names, including Carson Bingham, Mary Anne Drew, Robert Faraday, C K Fong, Annie Laurie McMurdie and Con ...
Wormholes
Item of sf Terminology borrowed from speculative Physics; the term was coined in 1957 by the physicist John A Wheeler (1911-2008) to describe a hypothetical short-cut through space/time corresponding very roughly to the beloved sf concept of Hyperspace. Wormholes may be associated with Black Holes (another Wheeler coinage) and their once-fashionable but probably ...
Schachner, Nat
(1895-1955) US chemist, lawyer and author, known mainly for biographies of US historical figures, who began publishing work of genre interest with "The Tower of Evil" with Arthur Leo Zagat (it was also his first publication) for Wonder Stories Quarterly, Summer 1930. His collaboration with Zagat lasted over a year, all Schachner's first eleven stories being done with him, including a novel-length tale, ...
Continuum Science Fiction
US low-paying Semiprozine published and edited by William Rupp, Bonsall, California under the imprint Continuum Publishing. It began as a Print Magazine with an advance preview edition, containing two stories, released in November 2003 and then seven formal issues from Winter 2004 to Fall 2006. The first three issues were in an intermediate, half-legal size (8.5 x 7 in; 215 x 175 mm), though dropped to a small review size (8.5 ...
McInnes, Graham
(1912-1970) UK-born film producer (for the National Film Board of Canada), diplomat (in the Canadian Department of External Affairs) and author, in Australia from 1920, in Canada after 1934; son of the novelist Angela Thirkell (1890-1961) – another son of hers was Colin MacInnes (1914-1976), who spelt his surname thus. Most of McInnes's work is not sf, but Lost Island: An Adventure (1954) is a Lost-Race story, in which a Canadian aviator ...
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 ...