SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 17 February 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 16 February 2026
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Wallace, Nick
(1972- ) UK media consultant and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Five Dimensional Thinking" in Life During Wartime (anth 2003) edited by Paul Cornell, like most of his work a contribution to the Doctor Who universe, in this case the Bernice Summerfield subseries. Fear Itself (2005) is set in the Doctor Who BBC Past Doctors subseries. ...
Mitchell, Silas Weir
(1829-1914) US physician, neurologist and author, of considerable eminence for his original research – he published at least 172 papers from 1852 on neurophysiology and related subjects. His theory that female depression could be cured through a tyrannical rest cure that that required patients to remain isolated and passive for long periods inspired The Yellow Wall Paper (January 1892 New England Magazine; 1899) by Charlotte Perkins ...
Golem
The Jewish legend of the Golem comprises a set of Proto-SF stories about the maker and the made. Several well-known rabbis and Judaic scholars of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance had Golem stories ascribed to them, the most elaborate cycle being that connected with Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel (1512-1609), the Maharal of Prague, a controversial and admired sage and community leader. "His" version of the Golem, Joseph, is an ...
Young, Florence Ethel
(1875-1945) UK author mostly of romances from the turn of the century to about 1936; of sf interest is The War of the Sexes (1905), set in a distant Near Future as envisioned in a dream where the Invention in the twentieth century of a fertility drug for rabbits has caused the virtual elimination of the human male; women breed by parthenogenesis. [JC]
Loudon, Jane Webb
(1800-1858) UK author of books on popular natural history and gardening, and of The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1827 3vols; rev 1828), published anonymously, like Mary Shelley, and also when she was relatively young, though not in her teens. Her birth year is almost certainly 1800 (as given here from 2022) not 1807, the earlier date having been established through research by Nickianne Moody, Andy ...
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 ...