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Tuesday 9 June 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 8 June 2026
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Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author, active from around 1950, several of whose books focused on London, including Capital (1975), a complex set of era-switching meditations – including a Neanderthal man's thoughts about the future – on the deep mythos of the city. The novel influenced Michael Moorcock's Mother London (1988) (as the author acknowledged clearly), and similar later works by Iain ...
Chandrasekera, Vajra
(1979- ) Sri Lanka-born author of mostly speculative fiction, who began to publish work of genre interest with "Pockets Full of Stones" in Clarkesworld for July 2013. He has published over a hundred short stories, essays, reviews, and articles, appearing in Analog, Clarkesworld, The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, Volume 2 (anth 2021) edited by Tarun ...
Casey, Richard
Originally a pseudonym of Leroy Yerxa; after his death a House Name used on the Ziff-Davis magazines from 1943 to 1949. Two of the thirteen "Casey" stories, "Pearl-Handled Poison" (December 1943 Fantastic Adventures) and "Carrion Crypt" (July 1947 Fantastic Adventures) are known to have been written by Yerxa. ...
Platts, W Carter
(1864-1944) UK author whose spoof sf collection, Up-To-To-Morrow; Or, Mr Chumson's Experiments (coll of linked stories 1903), depicts a series of Inventions, most of them sf, and their comical failure. [JC]
Amerika
US tv mini-series (1987). ABC Circle Films for ABC-TV. Produced by John Lugar and Richard L O'Connor. Directed by Donald Wrye. Written by Wrye. Cast includes Lara Flynn Boyle, Mariel Hemingway, Kris Kristofferson, Sam Neil and Robert Urich. Seven instalments, total 870 minutes. Colour. / In 1996 the Soviet Union launches a surprise attack on the US, detonating several very powerful nuclear warheads in the ionosphere over North America. This results in widespread disabling of the ...
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 ...