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Sunday 7 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.
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Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author 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 ...
Wrightson, Patricia
(1921-2010) Australian author, whose significant oeuvre of Young Adult fiction is mostly definable as fantasy [for extended entry on Patricia Wrightson see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], with tales like The Nargun and the Stars (1973) markedly innovative (from a perspective half a century on). They are particularly notable for their attempts unencroachingly to represent ...
Strange Fantasy
One of the many reprint Digest-size magazines published by Sol Cohen's Ultimate Publishing Co; compiled anonymously by Cohen. Six issues, three in 1969 (#8-#10) and three in 1970 (#11-#13). The strange numbering is related to the temporary death in 1969 of Science Fiction Classics after #8, but Strange Fantasy is not simply a variant title of the latter, which began again in 1971 with ...
Varan the Unbelievable
Film (1958; 1962 US). Original Japanese title Daikaijū Baran. Dallas Productions Inc/Toho Company (uncredited)/Crown International Pictures. Produced by Jerry A Baerwitz. Directed by Baerwitz and Ishirō Honda (uncredited). Written by Sid Harris from a story by Ken Kuronuma and Shi'ichi Sekizama (uncredited). Cast includes Myron Healey, Clifford Kawada and Tsuruko Kobayashi. 70 minutes. Black and white. / US naval commander James Bradley (Healey) is in charge ...
Altruism
Everyone is familiar with C P Snow's 1959 lecture on "The Two Cultures", incorporated into Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959), wherein he expressed alarm over the perceived separation of the communities of the sciences and the humanities; but few have noted his stated reason for the called-for reconciliation of the two divided communities: the need to address the growing divide between the rich nations and the poor nations of the ...
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 ...