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Sunday 7 December 2025
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 1 December 2025
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Tanigawa Nagaru
(1970- ) Japanese author largely in the Light Novel (chapbook) format, whose works bridge the ever-closing gap between fans of literary sf, Manga and Anime in Japanese culture. A graduate in Law from Kwansei Gakuin University, he first published sf with Dengeki Aegis 5 ["Shock! Aegis 5"] (March 2003 Dengeki Moeō; fixup 2004), a ...
Tolmie, Sarah
(1971- ) Canadian academic, poet and author, active from before 2000. Her first novel, The Stone Boatmen (2014), takes place in a dazzlingly oneiric trio of interconnected Cities, set like destination points of an Archipelago, on the edge of a surrounding sea; their deep history remains obscure, though a pervading sensation of some lurking ...
Berserkers
Term introduced by Fred Saberhagen for the implacably life-hating machines of his extensive Berserker series, which began with the short story "Fortress Ship" (January 1963 If; vt "Without a Thought" in Berserker, coll of linked stories 1967). These normally manifest as massive AI-controlled Spaceships with the capability to erase life from entire worlds; they ...
Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth
Film (2007; vt The Man from Earth). Falling Sky Entertainment. Directed by Richard Schenkman. Written by Jerome Bixby. Cast includes John Billingsley, Ellen Crawford, William Katt, Annika Peterson, Richard Riehle, David Lee Smith, Alexis Thorpe and Tony Todd. 87 minutes. Colour. / History professor John Oldman, who has unexpectedly announced he is leaving his position, hosts a farewell party for several colleagues and a student. In the course ...
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 ...