SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 9 June 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 8 June 2026
Sponsor of the day: The League of Fan Funds
Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author, active from around 1950, several of whose books focused on London, including Capital (1975), a complex set of era-switching meditations – including a Neanderthal man's thoughts about the future – on the deep mythos of the city. The novel influenced Michael Moorcock's Mother London (1988) (as the author acknowledged clearly), and similar later works by Iain ...
Frankenstein's Daughter
Film (1958; vt She Monster of the Night). Astor Pictures/Layton Film Productions, Inc. Produced by Marc Frederic. Directed by Richard E Cunha. Written by H E Barrie, distantly based on Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818; rev 1831) by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Makeup by Harry Thomas. Cast includes John Ashley, Wolfe Barzell, Sandra Knight, Harold Lloyd Jr, Felix Locher, Donald Murphy, Sally Todd and ...
Courage the Cowardly Dog
US animated tv series (1999-2002). Stretch Films. Created and directed by John R Dilworth. Written by Irv Bauer, David Steven Cohen, John R Dilworth and William Hohauser. Voice cast includes Arthur Anderson, Marty Grabstein, Thea White and Lionel G Wilson. 52 23-minute episodes (each usually comprising two stories), plus the pilot and a special. Colour. / Courage (Grabstein) is an abandoned Dog rescued by an old farming couple, the kindly Muriel Bagge ...
Wordmills
The term "wordmill" for a novel-writing Machine was coined by Fritz Leiber in The Silver Eggheads (January 1959 F&SF; exp 1962), though the general concept is much older. When contemplating future innovations in Technology, it is perhaps not surprising that sf writers have regularly hit upon the idea that machinery might someday take over their own profession of ...
Wright, Austin Tappan
(1883-1931) US corporation lawyer, academic and author; member of an intensely literary family of which figures of interest include his mother, the novelist Mary Tappan Wright (1851-1916), and his grandson, Tappan King [see also The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. His first publication of genre interest was "1915?" in The Atlantic Monthly for April 1915, which depicts an unnamed (but ...
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 ...