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Saturday 14 March 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 9 March 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Hassler, Donald M
(1937- ) US academic and scholar of sf, based at Kent State University, Ohio, from 1965 until his retirement in 2014. Hassler was President of the Science Fiction Research Association 1985-1986, and became managing editor of the journal Extrapolation with the Summer 1986 issue, co-editor with the Winter 1987 issue, and editor with the Spring 1990 issue, ending his active ...
Steere, C A
(? -? ) US author of When Things Were Doing (1908), whose protagonist is transported to a Near Future where, in command of millions of socialists, he becomes President of the United States, and creates a Utopia there; the novel is comic in tone. Unfortunately, President Bill awakens from this dream. [JC]
Benford, Gregory
(1941- ) US astrophysicist and author; in 1971 he was appointed an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of California, Irvine, rising to Professor of Plasma Physics and Astrophysics in 1979, a position he held until 2006, when he formally resigned in order to participate in a new bio-tech corporation dedicated to unplumbing the genetic governors of ageing in humans. His first involvement in sf was with Fandom: from May 1955 he edited ...
Arbur, Rosemarie
(1944- ) US author and critic who began to publish essays of genre interest with "Le Guin's 'Song' of Inmost Feminism" in Extrapolation for Fall 1980. Her Bibliography Leigh Brackett, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Anne McCaffrey: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1982) covers, as indicated by the title, the works up to that date of Leigh Brackett, ...
Dann, Jack
(1945- ) US author and anthologist, with a BA in social/political science, married initially to Jeanne Van Buren Dann and from 1995 to Janeen Webb, with both of whom he has collaborated, mostly resident in Australia from about 1990; he began publishing sf in 1970 with "Traps" (March 1970 If) and "Dark, Dark the Dead Star" (July 1970 If), both written ...
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 ...