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Monday 24 January 2022
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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Herbert, A P
(1890-1971) UK humorist, author and politician – an Independent MP from 1935 to 1950. He was prolific for 60 years after he began publishing light verse in Punch, some of it fantastic, around 1910. From 1917 his Punch work was signed A.P.H. The Secret Battle (1919) – a nonfantastic novel about the judicial murder by the British army of an officer whose tactical savvy is misinterpreted by his privileged senior – reflected the effect World War One had upon him after three years ...
Clement, Hal
Working name used for his sf by US author Harry Clement Stubbs (1922-2003); he used his full name for science articles, and painted as George Richard. He held degrees in astronomy, chemistry and education, and was long employed as a high-school science teacher. His first books were very well received; he fell out of favour in his middle years, but his last decades saw him enjoy an Indian summer. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1998, and was given the SFWA Grand Master ...
Stranger from Venus
Film (1954; vt Immediate Disaster; vt The Venusian US). Princess Pictures/Vitapix Corporation (US)/Rich and Rich Ltd. Produced by Burt Balaban and Gene Martel. Directed by Balaban. Written by Hans Jacoby from a story by Desmond Leslie. Cast includes Helmut Dantine, Cyril Luckham and Patricia Neal. 75 minutes. Black and white. / Driving near a small English village, Susan North (Neal) is distracted by something descending to earth; she crashes and is seriously injured. What has descended is ...
Dunn, Katherine
(1945-2016) US author, teacher and radio personality whose third novel, Geek Love (1989), is a densely told tale of a family which breeds its own circus freaks through a kind of Genetic Engineering; in the end the book reads, however, not primarily as sf (see Equipoise), but as an extremely expert Fabulation on the primordial theme of the family romance. Dunn's novel should not be confused with The Geek (1969) by Alice Louise Ramirez, which is narrated by a chicken. [JC]
Rowe, J W
(? -? ) US author of The Secret of Stonehenge: A New Thought Story (1913), in which it is discovered that the Lost Race that built Stonehenge boasted both occult powers and high Technology. [JC]
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. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began publishing sf reviews in 1964 and sf proper with "A Man Must Die" in New Worlds for November 1966, where much of his earlier criticism also appeared. This criticism, despite some studiously ...