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Friday 14 August 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 10 August 2026
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Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
Guasch, Pol
Working name of Spanish/Catalan author Pol Guasch i Arcas (1997- ), whose first novel, Napalm al cor (2021; trans Mara Faye Lethem as Napalm in the Heart 2024), is set Equipoisally in either or both an indeterminately Near Future Nomansland or the remains of an earthly City that might have once ...
Kipple
Term originating in Fandom, denoting useless or unwanted household junk and ephemera which seems to reproduce itself at the expense of non-kipple possessions – a low-key, domestic manifestation of Entropy (which see). The word spread from Fan Language into popular culture via the novels of Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) ...
Niesewand, Peter
(1944-1983) South African-born journalist and author, in the UK after 1973; his reporting of the political situation in what was then Rhodesia, and his imprisonment there, are well-remembered. Of sf interest is Fallback (1982), a Technothriller in which a Computer expert involved in medical research is transformed into a Cyborg in order to prevent ...
Frost, Gregory
(1951- ) US author who has been heavily involved in writers' workshops including Clarion and who began publishing sf with "In the Sunken Museum" for Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine in 1981; most of his work for a decade was governed by its fantasy tone, including his first novel, Lyrec (1984), which does evoke ...
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 ...