SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 3 August 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 28 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 ...
O'Leary, Brian
(1940-2011) US astronomer and author, formerly involved with NASA, and perhaps now best known for his assertion that NASA may have faked photographs of the Moon landing. His Near Future tale, Spaceship Titanic (1983) with Richard Duprey, depicts a Disaster on the hundredth space shuttle flight, which generates a life-or-death situation; the mission is saved. [JC]
Gombrowicz, Witold
(1904-1969) Polish playwright, essayist and author whose work was not directly connected with Genre SF, though he occasionally utilized fantastic elements; his impact on Polish literature (see Poland) was unprecedented both at the level of his highly original narrative technique, for which he derived idiosyncratic diminutive forms and neologisms, and a consistent philosophy, at some points evoking associations with existentialism, ...
Media Spotlight
US Media Magazine, the first issue tabloid-size, the remainder in letter-size saddle-stapled format printed on newsprint. Publisher: IRJAX Publications Incorporated. Editor: Jason Thomas under his best-known pseudonym Tom Rogers. Five numbered issues 1975-1977. Publication schedule was erratic. / Several people formerly associated with The Monster Times were connected with this magazine, a ...
Babbage, Charles
(1791-1871) UK mathematician and inventor, a founder of the Analytical Society in 1811, and a Fellow of the Royal Society from 1816; the first of his nearly 100 technical papers, "On continued products", appeared in 1813. His recognition of the necessity for accurate calculation of mathematical tables, as used in navigation and astronomy – after a particular bad set of calculations, he is famously reported to have said, "I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam" – ...
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 ...