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Wednesday 9 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.
Site updated on 7 July 2025
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Balch, William S
(1806-1887) US minister, politician journalist and author, mostly of nonfiction; of sf interest is A Peculiar People; Or, Reality in Romance (1881), in which a visitor to the secluded land of Nussara in the Middle East (see Lost Race) discovers there a successful Utopia run on religious lines. Balch was a minister in the Universalist Church, a faith which espouses the doctrine that God did not create humans to damn them. ...
Bolton, F H
(? -? ) UK author who apparently published only Young Adult books, including three of sf interest: In the Heart of the Silent Sea (1909 Boy's Own Paper; 1910), set in doomed Atlantis; Under the Edge of the Earth: A Story of Three Chums and a Startling Quest (March 29-September 27 1913 Boy's Own Paper; 1913), an Underground tale ...
Zou, Henry
(? - ) Australian author solely associated to date with the Warhammer 40,000 Wargame universe, his first Tie being Voidsong (in Planetkill, anth 2008, ed Nick Kyme and Lindsey Priestley; 2011 ebook) in the Warhammer 40,000 main sequence, and further titles in the associated Bastion Wars sequence, beginning with ...
Alexander, Patrick
(1926-1997) UK author of crime novels; of these Show Me a Hero (1979) – a Near Future thriller set in a Dystopian UK governed (as was common in 1970s novels of this description) by a left-wing dictatorship – is of some sf interest. [JC]
McDougall, Sophia
(1979- ) UK author whose Romanitas sequence, comprising Romanitas (2005), Rome Burning (2007) and Savage City (2011), posits an Alternate History world in which Rome did not fall; the Jonbar Point, which may be obscure to most readers, is generated by the survival of Publius Helvius Pertinax (126-193 in this world) for twelve years after he becomes ...
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 ...