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Sunday 7 December 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.
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
McInnes, Graham
(1912-1970) UK-born film producer (for the National Film Board of Canada), diplomat (in the Canadian Department of External Affairs) and author, in Australia from 1920, in Canada after 1934; son of the novelist Angela Thirkell (1890-1961) – another son of hers was Colin MacInnes (1914-1976), who spelt his surname thus. Most of McInnes's work is not sf, but Lost Island: An Adventure (1954) is a Lost-Race story, in which a Canadian aviator ...
de Pedrolo, Manuel
(1918-1990) Catalan author of an immensely varied series of works in all genres (poetry, journalism, drama, short fiction and the novel); his full range of accomplishments has not yet been fully acknowledged. Despite his staunch resistance against the repressive policies of Franco's regime (1939-1975) – he was a Republican soldier during the Civil War (1936-1939) – Pedrolo mistrusted the Catalan literary establishment of the democratic era, choosing to ...
Baggott, Julianna
(1969- ) US poet and author who has focused on dysfunctional family-romance narratives based on her own family – including a volume of poems, The Country of Mothers (coll 2001) and The Madam (2003), which is slightly fantasticated – and tales for teenage girls. Her Bodies sequence for children – comprising The Anybodies (2004), The Nobodies (2005) and The Somebodies (2006), all ...
Bien, H M
(1831-1895) German-born rabbi and author, in the US from an early age; his book of poems, Oriental Legends and Other Poems (coll 1883), contains some fantasy content. Of sf interest is Ben-Beor: A Story of the Anti-Messiah. In Two Divisions (1891; vt Ben-Beor: A Historical Story. In Two Divisions 1892), the first division of which involves a journey to the Moon by Elijah in a fiery chariot, the second of which engages with 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 ...