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Friday 29 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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White, Arnold Henry
(1848-1925) UK businessman, politician, journalist and author of a Future War tale, When War Breaks Out [for subtitle see Checklist below] (1898 chap) with H W Wilson, a fairly late example of the Battle of Dorking story, with Britain in this case almost suffering defeat at the hands of France and Russia, though America comes to her aid, enabling Britain to win a sea victory. ...
May, Karl
(1842-1912) German author, much of whose output consisted of Westerns conceived under the clear influence of James Fenimore Cooper; the most famous of these is the Winnetou sequence, featuring the eponymous Native American (as noble as many Germans) and the white man, Old Shatterhand (a projection of the author), the central story being told in Winnetou, der rote Gentleman ...
Sinclair, Alison
(1959- ) UK-born medical doctor and author, permanently in Canada from 1979, who began to publish work of genre interest with "Assassin" in Back Brain Recluse for Summer 1991. She is of greatest sf interest for her first three novels. Though no specific mention is made of Homo sapiens, Legacies (1995) is tonally akin to sf novels, mostly of an earlier generation, which are set during or after the great ...
Trench, Melesina
(1768-1827) Irish author, born Melesina Chevenix; she used her married name for all her writings. She is of sf interest for a Proto SF Fantastic Voyage in verse, Laura's Dream; Or, the Moonlanders (1816 chap), whose narrator travels to the Moon in a dream, an expedient perhaps specifically modeled on Johannes Kepler's Somnium (1634), a ...
Lawrence, Louise
Pseudonym of Elizabeth Rhoda Holden (1943-2013), UK author who began publishing Young Adult sf with Andra (1971), and who early became noted for the marked and sensitive intelligence of her settings and characters. Both of her novel series – the Wyndcliffe sequence, comprising The Wyndcliffe (1974) and Sing and Scatter Daisies (1977), and the Llandor sequence, comprising Journey Through Llandor ...
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 consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and sf ...