SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 20 May 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.
Site updated on 19 May 2025
Sponsor of the day: Janine G Stinson
Soule, Charles
(1974- ) US Comics writer and author; he has written scripts for DC Comics' Swamp Thing, though much of his more recent work has been for Marvel Comics, including work derived from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. / Soule's first novel, The Oracle Year (2018), while focusing on its ...
Science Fiction Foundation
UK research unit set up in 1971 at the North East London Polytechnic (which became the University of East London in 1992), but semi-autonomous, being controlled by a council, partly academics and partly sf professionals, and including George Hay, whose enthusiasm had much to do with the SFF's inception. Peter Nicholls, the first administrator (1971-1977), was followed by Malcolm Edwards ...
Groves, Jay
(1922-2010) US teacher of history and economics, and author whose short sf novel – featuring the landing of a flying saucer (see UFOs) – is Fireball at the Lake: A Story of Encounter with Another World (1967). [JC]
Brooke, Keith
(1966- ) UK author who began publishing sf with "The Fifth Freedom" for Dream Quarterly (see Dream Magazine) in Winter 1988, and who has remained active as an author of short fiction. He has published two volumes of stories: Parallax View (coll 2000) with Eric Brown, which comprises mostly collaborative efforts, and Head Shots (2001). His short work is variously ...
Erskine, Douglas
Pseudonym of Scots-descended Canadian lawyer John Stuart Buchan (1852-1927). It has implausibly been suggested that Erskine was a pseudonym of John Buchan – perhaps because his son's full name was John Norman Stuart Buchan (1911-1996). Erskine's novel – A Bit of Atlantis (1900) – lacks any resemblance to Buchan's own work of the time; in this tale, a Scottish Canadian inventor, who descends from lost Atlanteans, is shipwrecked on ...
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 ...