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Thursday 17 July 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 16 July 2025
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Williams, Tess
(1954-2025) UK-born teacher, editor and author, in Australia for many years, there receiving a degree in literature from Curtin University and an MA in creative writing from the University of Western Australia. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Padwan Affair" in She's Fantastical (anth 1995) edited by Judith Raphael Buckrich and Lucy Sussex. Of sf interest are two novels: Map of Power (1996), set mostly in a ...
Light, Walter H
(1881-1940) UK author of fiction for boys, most active before and during World War One, who also wrote as by Walter Herrod and Wingrove Willson. Kings of the Amazon (26 January-6 April 1929 Boys' Magazine as "The Peril Kings of Amazon Mystery-Land"; 1929 chap) as by Willson, a Lost Race tale, is typical. [JC/RR] see also: Boys' Friend Library; Boys' Papers. / ...
Rossmann, John F
(1942- ) US author of the Mind Masters sequence, beginning with The Mind Masters (1974), in which a Vietnam vet, whose ESP powers have been activated by trauma, joins a secret organization whose goal is to prevent the powers-that-be from subverting research into paranormal phenomena; as the series progresses, Equipoisal shifts between sf and supernatural horror weaken its occasional strengths. The ...
Murphy, John P
(? - ) US engineer and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Unintended Consequences" in Murphy's Blog for 11 March 2011, his best-known shorter work being the novella "The Liar" (March 2016 F&SF), whose protagonist finds that his routine dissimulations morph the world around him (see Horror in SF). Murphy's first novel, Red Noise (2020), is a ...
Rock, Pam
Joint pseudonym of a writing team comprising Barbara Andrews (? - ) and Pamela S Hanson (? - ), Hanson being Andrews's daughter; they also write nonfantastic romantic fiction as by Jennifer Drew, Pam Andrews Hanson, Evangeline Kelley. As Rock they are responsible for the romantic Planetary Romance Moon sequence beginning with Moon of Desire (1993), set on a ...
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 ...