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Sunday 12 July 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.
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Wells, Jess
(1955- ) US author whose fiction has generally been nonfantastic; she began to publish work of genre interest with "The Succubus" in Embracing the Dark (anth 1991) edited by Eric Garber. Her sf novel, AfterShocks (1992), is set in Near Future San Francisco (see California), where the effects of a devastating earthquake (see Disaster) are played out ...
Royal, Matthew J
(1863-1900) Canadian teacher and author of The Isle of the Virgins: A Romance (1899; cut vt The Unknown Island; Or, The Isle of the Virgins 1905), a Lost Race Utopia set on an Island where women – descended from ancient Romans – dominate; men are allowed to mate only within the framework of a game (see ...
Weddle, David
(? - ) US journalist, Television producer, screenwriter and author, who has created episodes for Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999) and The Twilight Zone (2002-2003), among others. He has published relatively little in book form, over ...
Zecca, Ferdinand
(1864-1947) Pioneering French filmmaker (see Cinema) who directed over 160 films between 1899 and 1915 (plus one in 1919), virtually all for Pathé Frères. Subject matter included Religion, history, Fantasy, melodrama and moral tales, as well as one about a hotel employee who peeps through keyholes. / Only a few of his films are sf. One is Le Voleur Invisible ...
Waters, M D
(1978- ) US author whose Archetype sequence comprising Archetype (2014) and Prototype (2014) features a young woman with Amnesia – it is soon revealed that she has suffered a Memory Edit at the hands of her doctors – whose responses to the world into which she is revived are akin to responses typical of protagonists in ...
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 ...