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Wednesday 13 May 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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Suzuki Kōji
(1957-2026) Japanese author and essayist, largely known in English through the Cinema adaptations of several of his books, the international success of which obscured his wide-ranging domestic output. His horror and Equipoisal fiction proceeded in tandem with a wide array (not listed here) of books on young fatherhood and occasional works on motorcycle travel. He was also the translator of Simon Brett's ...
Wells's Law
Term used in this encyclopedia for the principle, formulated by H G Wells, that an sf or fantasy story should contain only a single extraordinary assumption. James Blish paraphrases it in More Issues at Hand: Critical Studies in Contemporary Science Fiction (coll 1970) as by William Atheling Jr, speaking of Wells's "hard rule ... that only a single fantastic assumption was admissible per story, and must thereafter be ...
What's So Bad about Feeling Good?
Film (1968). Universal Pictures. Produced and directed by George Seaton. Written by Robert Pirosh and Seaton, based on I Am Thinking of My Darling: An Adventure Story (1943) by Vincent McHugh. Cast includes Jeanne Arnold, Dom DeLuise, Mary Tyler Moore, George Peppard, Susan Saint James, Gillian Spencer and Don Stroud. 94 minutes. Colour. / Artist Pete (Peppard) is living in a commune loft in New York with ...
Stearns, R E
(1983- ) US author whose Shieldrunner Pirates sequence begins with Barbary Station (2017), a Space Opera set in a distant Near Future where Earth has suffered defeat in an interplanetary war. Escaping this desolate world, the protagonists, long-time partners who are Black and lesbian (see Race in SF; Sex), travel by ...
Erikson, Steven
Pseudonym of Canadian archaeologist, anthropologist (no longer active in either profession) and author Steve Rune Lundin (1959- ), whose first books, published under his own name, were mostly nonfantastic, beginning with A Ruin of Feathers (coll of linked stories 1991); the title story of Revolvo and Other Canadian Tales (coll 1998; rev vt including title story only Revolvo 2008 chap as by Steven Erikson) is a ...
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 ...