SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 6 December 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 1 December 2025
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Golden Age of SF
It has been said, cynically, that the Golden Age of sf is twelve. (This epigram, often wrongly ascribed or paraphrased with slightly different ages, was coined by the sf fan Peter Graham.) / Certainly there is no objective measure by which we can say that the sf of any one period was notably superior to that of any other. Nonetheless, in conventional usage (at least within Fandom) some older readers have referred to the years 1938-1946 as sf's first Golden Age, ...
Stilson, Janet
(? - ) US journalist and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Imaginary Children" in Asimov's for July-August 2020, a tale associated with her Charismites sequence beginning with The Juice (2021), which is set in a Near Future Dystopian post-Cyberpunk world. The "juice" is a ...
Roberts, Alaric J
(? - ) US author in whose New Trade Winds for the Seven Seas (1942) a Lost World is discovered beneath a Pacific Island Under the Sea inhabited by survivors of Atlantis, who agree to use their advanced Technology and civilization to help the twentieth century world above. ...
Davitt, Deborah L
(1974- ) US teacher, poet and author, initially of the Saga of Edda-Earth beginning with The Valkyrie (2014) (series not listed below). Her poetry has been assembled in The Gates of Never (coll, 2019) and elsewhere. She is of specific sf interest for a novella, The Carrying Capacity of Paradise (2024 chap), in which a tycoon is murdered on his own refuge Asteroid. [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. 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 ...