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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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Bailey, John
(1944- ) Australian author, chiefly of historical nonfiction, whose early works include an erotic sf novel: The Moon Baby (1978), set in a gadget-strewn but otherwise anonymous world bedevilled by social misfits bred on the Moon. [JC]
Ruritania
Imaginary countries are common in the literatures of the world, but only some can properly be called Ruritanian. In The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) by the UK author Anthony Hope, Rudolf Rassendyll, a leisured and insouciant young Britisher of the 1890s, travels on a whim, via Paris and Dresden, to the small, feudal, independent, German-speaking middle-European kingdom of Ruritania, located somewhere east-southeast of the latter city. Here he ...
Scifi Dimensions
US Online Magazine featuring Interviews, reviews, articles and commentary and usually one piece of fiction posted per week, for which it paid up to professional rates depending on length. The site was run by John C Snider, Atlanta, Georgia and operated from February 2000 to February 2010. Initially it ran fiction solely by Snider himself but it soon welcomed contributions from others, including Kevin Ahearn, Steve Antczk, ...
Clark, Pushman
Presumed pseudonym of Heidi Lampietti (1967- ). Pushman is the ostensible name of the nephew of Ensign Clark, creator of the (fictional) 1962 sf television series, a transcript of the episodes of which comprise The Adventures of Damian Koehkh, MD: Space Doctor (coll 2004), Fabulations told in a conspicuously gonzo voice. The proper pronunciation of Koehkh is presumably "kooky"; the book is copyright by Heidi Lampietti, who is ...
Deus Ex Machina
Videogame (1984). Automata UK. Designed by Mel Croucher. Platforms: Spectrum (1984); MSX (1985); C64 (1986). / Deus Ex Machina is a member of no recognizable school of Videogame design, though its anarchic ethos can be seen in many other British games of the time. It is, rather, the computer game reconceived as concept album (see SF Music); it shares more with the work ...
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 ...