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Monday 13 July 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 13 July 2026
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Quincy, J P
(1829-1910) US lawyer, politician (mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, 1895-1899) and author. After, Lyteria: A Dramatic Poem (1854), a long philosophical verse drama set in Roman times with strong hints of the supernatural, he mostly published legal studies, though his one novel, The Peckster Professorship: An Episode in the History of Psychical Research (1888), is of sf interest as an attempt to put various occult preoccupations – divination, prophecy (see ...
Hypertext
Hypertext can be defined as a way of organizing textual information which allows users to move from one section, or node, to another along various routes, or links. It is generally assumed that this scheme is implemented on a computer system; this encyclopedia is itself an example of hypertext. The idea of somehow automating the retrieval of information from a common store appears repeatedly in the writings of the early twentieth century, as in the Permanent World Encyclopedia suggested by H G ...
Webb, William Thomas
(1918-2006) UK author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Escape from Plenty" (February 1958 Nebula) as by W T Webb; he wrote a moderate number of Space Operas for Robert Hale Limited, some of them involving Time Travel and travel into other Dimensions; The Fate of the Phral (1980), ...
Destination Space
Made-for-tv film (1959). Paramount. Directed by Joseph Pevney. Produced Alford (Rip) Van Ronkel. Cast includes John Agar, Charles Aidman, Whitney Blake, Cecil Kellaway, Gail Kobe, Edward Platt and Harry Townes. Written by Van Ronkel. 51 minutes. Black and white. / An attempt is being made to launch a mission to the Moon from Earth's Space Station, which has been nicknamed "Benedict's ...
Brooks, Mel
Working name of US film-maker, writer (initially for Television) and actor Melvin James Kaminsky (1926- ), who as an improvisational stand-up comedian in 1953 created the ongoing character of the 2000 Year Old Man, an Immortal who attended Christ's crucifixion and offers a skewed perspective on the modern world ("I have over forty-two thousand children, and not one comes to visit ...
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 ...