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Tuesday 11 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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Lawrence, Conrad
(? - ) US author of The Council to Save the Planet (coll of linked stories 1994), which dramatizes a Near Future attempt to accomplish the goal indicated in its title through the creation of a Disaster huge enough to give its survivors a second chance to live correctly. [JC]
Lin Yutang
Working name of Chinese-US author, essayist and academic Lin Yü-t'ang (1895-1976), his most important scholarly achievement (in strong contrast to his many volumes of popularized wisdom) being the Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage (1972). In his one sf novel, The Unexpected Island (1955; vt Looking Beyond 1955), refugees from several world Holocausts establish a conservative ...
Whiting, Sydney
(1820/1821-1875) UK barrister, poet and author whose Memoirs of a Stomach: Written by Himself, That All Who Eat May Read (1853; rev 1853; further rev 1855) as by "The Minister of the Interior", though seemingly spoofish, articulates issues of the relationship between imperial mind and digestive body in mid-nineteenth-century terms. Of more sf interest is Heliondé; Or, Adventures in the Sun (1854; rev 1855), whose protagonist, conveniently ...
Drago, Ty
Working name of US author Anthony Charles Drago Jr (1960- ) who began to publish work of genre interest with "Childspell" for Haunts in 1992. He founded the Online Magazine Allegory (formerly known as Peridot Books) in 1998. His Near Future near-space tale, Phobos (2003), interweaves scientific intrigue on the eponymous Moon of ...
Pursuit
Made-for-tv film (1972). ABC Circle/ABC TV. Directed by Michael Crichton. Written by Robert Dozier, based on Binary (1972) by Crichton writing as by John Lange. Cast includes Ben Gazzara, E G Marshall, Martin Sheen, William Windom and Joseph Wiseman. 72 minutes. Colour. / In this lively thriller, Crichton's directorial debut, an extremist politician prepares to use a nerve-gas chemical Weapon capable of ...
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 ...