SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 11 July 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 7 July 2026
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O'Neill, Louise
(1985- ) Irish journalist and author whose first novel, the Near Future Young Adult Dystopia Only Ever Yours (2014), posits a world where women are raised as breeders, selected for their physical beauty and decorousness when addressed by males, as concubines, or "chastities" (which is to say teachers of young females) (see Feminism; ...
Gamemaster
Term used to refer to the individual who, in a group participating in a Role Playing Game, serves as both arbitrator of the rules and personification of the setting. Thus, the Gamemaster will take the part of any character not owned by one of the players, describe the appearance of the world, control events which occur "off stage", and so on. Some Gamemasters of "pen and paper" or "tabletop" Role Playing Games see themselves as neutral animators of a ...
Sidney-Fryer, Donald
(1934-2026) US author, poet, critic, literary historian, ballet historian and bibliographer who began to publish verse of genre interest with "Connaissance Fatale" in The Arkham Collector for Winter 1968 (ie. the winter of 1967-1968); this was included in his Songs and Sonnets Atlantean (coll 1971) from Arkham House, many of whose poems are supposedly by poets of ancient Atlantis translated by Sidney-Fryer. He ...
Pariah Elite
Term introduced in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, having been suggested by Roz Kaveney as shorthand for the common genre trope of a specially gifted but also distrusted, feared, and/or persecuted minority (as distinct from Secret Masters who influence the world but whose existence is generally unknown). The cadre that surrounds the Superman ...
Covina, Gina
(1952- ) US author on various topics, including Ecology issues, and author of a Near Future Disaster novel, The City of Hermits (1983), which is set in California after a great earthquake; there are hopes, subsequently, of a Utopian outcome. [JC]
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 ...