SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 16 March 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.
Site updated on 16 March 2026
Sponsor of the day: The League of Fan Funds
Dietz, William C
(1945-2026) US author who began to publish sf with War World (1986; vt Galactic Bounty 1997), the first volume of his Sam McCade sequence of sf adventures about an interstellar bounty hunter, which continued with Imperial Bounty (1988) and two further titles. The galactic venue of the series exhibits some interesting kinks, and McCade himself gradually gains individuality. Although the angle of approach differs – the protagonist this time ...
Nicholas, J T
(? - ) US author whose New Lyons sequence beginning with SINthetic (2018) in which "Synths" (which is to say Androids) rebel from the condition of Slavery they have been manufactured for; the series, set primarily in New Orleans, focuses on Cyberpunk-inflected action. In Re-Coil (2020), a singleton ...
Curtis, A C
(1867-? ) UK author of a Future War novel, A New Trafalgar: A Tale of the Torpedo Fleet (1902), whose focus is (as the title indicates) on naval operations. [JC]
Porter, Peter
(1929-2010) Australian editor and poet, in UK from 1951, prolifically active from 1958; two of his 1960s poems appear in Edward Lucie-Smith's early sf Poetry selection Holding Your Eight Hands (anth 1969). He is of further sf interest for one volume, Mars (coll 1988 chap), heavily illustrated by the Australian painter Arthur Boyd (1920-1999), where a sometimes heavily metaphorical ...
Smith, Sherwood
Pseudonym of US author Christine I Smith Lowentrout (1951- ), much of whose work has been fantasy, and much of her production under other pseudonyms, usually for the production of Ties. As Robyn Tallis, she wrote four Planet Builders Ties: Rebel from Alphorion (1989), Visions from the Sea (1989), Giants of Elenna (1989) and Fire in the Sky (1989); as Nicholas ...
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 ...