SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 13 September 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 7 September 2026
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Boys' Life
US monthly Magazine for boys in Boy Scouting, and the leading US equivalent of the UK's Boys' Papers. Claiming 1.1 million circulation in 2009, Boys' Life aims to provide wholesome reading for boys aged 9 to 15. Founded in 1911 by George S Barton, the magazine was purchased in 1912 by the Boy Scouts of America, who remain its publisher. Beginning at 6.5 by 9.25 in (165 x 235 mm), in 1912 the Boys' Life format became ...
King, Reed
Pseudonym of unidentified US author (? - ) whose only publication under this name, FKA USA (2019), is a gonzo distant Near Future tale set in a balkanized America and describing a road-trip from what was once Missouri, but is now Crunch, United Colonies, to California. In 2085, all the Climate-Change and Ecological ...
Hornig, Charles D
(1916-1999) US editor and – briefly – author whose career began in September 1933 when, as a young sf fan, he started a Fanzine called The Fantasy Fan: The Fans' Own Magazine (see Amateur Magazine), and happened to send a copy of it to Hugo Gernsback. By coincidence, Gernsback was at that time looking for a new managing editor for ...
Danforth, Mildred E
(1900-1985) US author of the routine First Contact tale, From Outer Space (1963). [JC]
Kassil, Lev
(1905-1970) Russian author who specialized in Young Adult tales, usually adherent to Soviet views of the proper development of Russian youth. Of sf interest is Shvambranye (1934; trans Sylvia Glass and Norbert Guterman as The Land of Shvambrania 1935; new trans Fainna Glagoleva as The Black Book and Schwambrania 1978 USSR), which describes a Lost World accessible only via a surreally ...
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 ...