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Wednesday 19 February 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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 18 February 2025
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Moore, Chris
(1947-2025) Prolific UK artist, known to the public primarily for his hard-edged treatment of Hard SF subjects, although in fact he produced covers in different styles for all sorts of other genres as well, including illustrations of record sleeves for artists as diverse as Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo and Pentangle. What impressed most about Moore's sf art was not just the photographic realism but the sense of scale, achieved largely through a ...
Crawford, Betty Anne
(1952- ) US author who published fantasy novels [see Checklist below] as by Hendra Benoit, Lee Creighton, Maxwell Hurley and Sal Liquori; under her own name, she published her only sf novel, The Bushido Incident (1992), which depicts a twenty-first-century Earth dominated by Japanese corporations while Aliens from outer space begin to destabilize this system. [JC]
Young, Robert F
(1915-1986) US author who turned full-time after engaging in a number of menial occupations. His first sf story was "The Black Deep Thou Wingest" for Startling Stories in June 1953, and he published short work quite prolifically for the next three decades. Young was a slick, polished writer; his stories are readable, often superficial, but the best of them have some of the emotional force of the work of Ray Bradbury, ...
Measday, Stephen
(1950- ) Australian author and scriptwriter for various media, most significantly for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, his Television including The Time Game (1993), which he novelized as his first tale of sf interest, The Time Game (1993). The News on Aliens (1997), part of the otherwise nonfantastic Rick Street Roving Reporter sequence, deals with the discovery of ...
Universal Translator
Automated language translation is a highly convenient plot device for sf stories, facilitating Communication with Aliens without miring the action in realistic examination of Linguistic issues. An early example is the Language Rectifier facility of the Telephot videophone in Hugo Gernsback's Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660 (April 1911-March 1912 ...
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 ...