SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 25 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.
Site updated on 18 September 2023
Sponsor of the day: Terrence Somerville
Stearns, Theodore
(1881-1935) US composer, known only for his operas (see SF Music), of which Co-O-Za (performance not traced; 1922) is set partly in contemporary New York, where an opera is being rehearsed, and partly by virtue of Timeslip in Atlantis, where one contemporary actors reveals himself to be Co-O-Za, the last king of the doomed Island. [JC]
Cox, Richard [2]
(1970- ) US author, not to be confused with Richard (Hubert Francis) Cox (see previous entry); his two sf novels are Rift (2004), about an experimental Teleportation device, and The God Particle (2005), in which the search for a theoretical sub-atomic particle leads a Scientist in the direction of the eponymous deus ex machina. [JC]
Gautier, Émile
(1853-1937) French anarchist, imprisoned 1883-1885 for making speeches, and journalist specializing in popular science; best known for the nonfiction Le Darwinisme social ["Social Darwinism"] (1880), a text which familiarized the term Social Darwinism for French readers. Solo he published an sf tale, "Le Désiré" (1892 La Science Illustrée), and with Marie-Francois ...
Toomey, Robert E, Jr
(1945- ) US author who began publishing sf stories with "Pejorative" for New Worlds in July 1969. His A World of Trouble (1973), a Space Opera, sets a galactic agent on an alien planet, where he has many jocosely told adventures. [JC]
Aldridge, Alan
(1943-2017) UK artist and author, active from about 1963, initially as an illustrator for The Sunday Times Magazine. He created a number of striking sf covers in his distinctive quasi-psychedelic airbrushed style for Penguin Books, first as a freelance and then as Penguin's art director from 1965 to 1968, when he moved on to his own graphic design company INK. Aldridge's most prolific year at Penguin was 1967, with memorable cover art for J G Ballard's ...
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 publishing sf reviews in 1964 and sf proper with "A Man Must Die" in New Worlds for ...