SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 19 July 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.
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Williams, Tess
(1954-2025) UK-born teacher, editor and author, in Australia for many years, there receiving a degree in literature from Curtin University and an MA in creative writing from the University of Western Australia. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Padwan Affair" in She's Fantastical (anth 1995) edited by Judith Raphael Buckrich and Lucy Sussex. Of sf interest are two novels: Map of Power (1996), set mostly in a ...
Smiling Friends
Australian/US animated tv series (2020; 2023-current). Princess Bento. Created, directed and written by Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack. Voice cast includes Michael Cusack, Zach Hadel and Marc M. Seventeen 11-minute episodes. Colour. / Smiling Friends is an organization dedicated to cheering people up: working from a building shaped like a giant smiley-face emoji, its members visit the despondent and attempt to bring a smile to their faces. The focus is ...
Palmer, Bernard
(1914-1998) US author of several series for children and the Young Adult market, all specifically designed to impart Christian values. Of sf interest is the Pat Collins/Jim Dunlap sequence, comprising a series of tales starring Pat Collins, most of which were revised and retitled about a decade later and starring Jim Dunlap; the first of these is Pat Collins and the Peculiar Dr Brockton (1957 rev vt ...
Startling Stories
1. US Pulp magazine, 99 issues January 1939 to Fall 1955, published by Better Publications January 1939 to Winter 1955, and by Standard Magazines (really the same company) Spring to Fall 1955; edited by Mort Weisinger (January 1939-May 1941), Oscar J Friend (July 1941-Fall 1944), Sam Merwin Jr (Winter 1945-September 1951), Samuel ...
Indiana, Rita
(1977- ) Dominican singer-songwriter and author, who is of sf interest for her third novel, La mucama de Omicunlé ["Omicunlés Maid"] (2015; trans by Achy Obejas as Tentacle 2018), set initially in 2037, in a Near Future Dominican Republic devastated by Climate Change and other Disasters. The protagonist Acilde, who is the Dominican ...
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 ...