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Tuesday 6 October 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 6 October 2026
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Edwards, Malcolm
(1949-2026) UK editor, critic and publisher, educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in anthropology. Active in UK sf Fandom in the 1970s and early 1980s, he published the first complete text of James Blish's "The Science in Science Fiction" (May 1951-May 1952 Science Fiction Quarterly) in his Fanzine Quicksilver #2 in 1971; edited the ...
Lofting, Hugh
(1886-1947) UK civil engineer and author, mostly in the USA from 1912, though he joined the Irish Guards in 1916, was severely wounded in 1917 and invalided out. It was during his period in the trenches that – like some other central creators of twentieth century fantasy, including J R R Tolkien, with first-hand experience of World War One – he began to create a fantasy universe, at least in part to sidestep a ...
Smith, Fred
(1927-2024) Scots music teacher and fan active in Fandom from the earlier 1950s, whose Fanzines included Haemogoblin (5 issues 1953-1959) and Needle (five issues 1954-1955); a founder member of Glasgow's New Lands SF Club in 1952 and of OMPA (which see) in 1954. He was largely inactive from 1958 to the 1990s, but then began to participate again and early in the new century published a memoir of Unknown, to which ...
Steuart, John A
(1861-1932) Scottish-born editor and author, in Canada for some years, subsequently in England. The Club Stories assembled as The Jolly Pashas: The Story of an Unphilanthropic Society (coll of linked stories 1892) are essentially nonfantastic, or debunked [see Rationalized Fantasy in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. In the Day of Battle (1894) is a ...
International Fantasy Award
UK-based Award, made annually from 1951 to 1955 and finally in 1957. The idea came from four UK enthusiasts: John Beynon Harris (John Wyndham), Frank Cooper, G Ken Chapman and Leslie Flood. The International Fantasy Awards were presented to the authors of the best fantasy or sf book of the year, with a second category for the best nonfiction book likely to be of interest to sf readers; the nonfiction ...
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 ...