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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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Allan, Mabel Esther
(1915-1998) UK author, mostly of tales for children and romances, active from the early 1930s, who also wrote as by Jean Estorel, Priscilla Hagen, Kathleen M Pearcey and Anne Pilgrim; her work for children shows the influence of the author and educational philosopher A S Neill. She is of sf interest for Time to Go Back (1972), whose protagonist uses a form of Time Travel to experience her family's ordeal in ...
Thurston, Robert
(1936-2021) US author and academic who attended the first Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop in 1968 and began to publish work of genre interest with "Stop Me before I Tell More", in Orbit 9 (anth 1971) edited by Damon Knight, and who was for some years known only for his short work. This is notable more for its examination of individual humans caught in social or sexual extremis ...
Anglin, Norman
(1891-1944) UK poet and playwright who served in World War One; his Near Future play Poison Gas (1928) dramatizes the issue of Poison gas, its use (via Weather Control devices), and hopes of its prevention, a topic much discussed in the years after the War. Tragically, in a strife-torn starvation-prone 1950, a guilt-ridden industrialist fails to ...
Engh, M J
(1933-2024) US librarian, unaffiliated scholar and author who also wrote as by Jane Beauclerk; she began to publish work of genre interest with "We Serve the Star of Freedom" in F&SF for July 1964 as by Jane Beauclerk. Her first sf novel, Arslan (1976; vt A Wind from Bukhara 1989), established a strong underground reputation in its first incarnation as a paperback original; a hardbound edition was released a decade later. Arslan, a young ...
Otherwise Award
The name under which the former James Tiptree Jr Award for Gender-bending or gender-exploring speculative fiction has been presented since 2020 (for work published in the previous year). Otherwise Award winners are listed below by year of publication, and also for convenience of reference in the winner list of the older Tiptree Award entry. [DRL] Winners 2019: Akwaeke Emezi, ...
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 ...