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Sunday 16 November 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 10 November 2025
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Arikawa Hiro
(1972- ) Japanese author whose work, ostensibly in the Light Novel field, has acquired a weight and respect that has garnered high critical praise, including the Seiun Award, often being published in the increasingly rare hardback format. She swiftly established herself in the first decade of the twenty-first century as a guru for Japan's Millennials, tailoring fiction to meet the ...
Despard, Leslie
Working name of UK author John Leslie Despard Howitt (1895-1940), an author mostly of detective stories, though The Amazing Adventures of Mr Henry Button (1927) is an sf tale describing the Invention of a device designed to enforce peace upon the world. Though clearly over-age, he joined the RAF and was shot down in action. [JC]
Carter, Tremlett
(1866-1903) Indian-born author, in the UK from childhood, whose works include at least one technical study of electrical machinery, and The People of the Moon (1895), an sf novel containing a narrative of life inside the hollow Moon that has been conveyed by Antigravity device to a man on Earth. Within the Moon may be found Monsters galore, Airships, ...
Balderston, John L
(1889-1954) US playwright and screenwriter who wrote, always in collaboration, some dramas of genre interest. Berkeley Square (performed 1926; 1928 chap) with J C Squire is a Timeslip fantasy based on The Sense of the Past (1917) by Henry James (1843-1916); Red Planet (first performed late 1932; 1933 chap) with J E Hoare is a Near Future moral melodrama in which ...
MacKay, Donald
(? -? ) US author of The Dynamite Ship (1888), a Near Future tale in which the Invention of a new Weapon is used to force the United Kingdom to free Ireland. [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 (1966-1967), and later in ...