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Tuesday 12 May 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.
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Suzuki Kōji
(1957-2026) Japanese author and essayist, largely known in English through the Cinema adaptations of several of his books, the international success of which obscured his wide-ranging domestic output. His horror and Equipoisal fiction proceeded in tandem with a wide array (not listed here) of books on young fatherhood and occasional works on motorcycle travel. He was also the translator of Simon Brett's ...
Gardner, Erle Stanley
(1889-1970) US lawyer and author, most famous for the eighty-two volume Perry Mason detective series beginning with The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933). He had been extremely prolific from the start of his career around 1921, publishing at least 60 stories and a novel in Pulp magazines in 1933 alone; he spent almost no time at all on sf. His first story of genre interest was "Rain Magic" for (20 October 1928 Argosy ...
Sleeper
Film (1973). Rollins-Joffe Productions/United Artists. Directed by Woody Allen. Written by Allen, Marshall Brickman. Cast includes Allen, John Beck, Mary Gregory, Diane Keaton and Don Keefer. 88 minutes. Colour. / The plot device of having a man from the present suddenly finding himself in the future (this time through Cryonics) is nearly always used to comment on contemporary society rather than to speculate about the future (see ...
Hildick, E W
(1925-2001) UK author, partially resident in the USA from around 1965, prolific author from 1958 of no-nonsense tales for younger children and Young Adult readers, often featuring working-class protagonists and focusing on practical solutions to the problems of living; the late Ghost Squad sequence enjoyably loosens his didactic impulses, retailing a series of conflicts between its young protagonists and the eponymous gang of quasi-criminal ghosts. Books ...
Monkey Punch
(1937-2019) Working name of Kazuhiko Katō, a Japanese Manga artist, largely remembered for a crime caper series (see Crime and Punishment) with frequent crossovers into Equipoise and the Technothriller. His first few strips were published as by Kazuhiko Katō, a pseudonym written with different characters, but pronounced the same ...
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 ...