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Tuesday 14 January 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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.
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Invasion
Futuristic fiction in the UK was given a tremendous boost by the success of George T Chesney's clever piece of propaganda, The Battle of Dorking (May 1871 Blackwood's Magazine; 1871 chap), which put the case for army reform and rearmament by offering a dramatic illustration of the ease with which the UK might fall to an invading German army (see Battle of Dorking). This became the foundation-stone ...
Guirdham, Arthur
(1905-1992) UK physician, psychiatrist and author, usually on topics related to his professional work, though also some speculative works on the occult and the Cathar religion; of sf interest is The Lights Were Going Out (1944), in which a Dystopia succeeds a premature peace that ends World War Two (see Hitler Wins). [JC]
Barr, George
(1937- ) US illustrator, one of the most meticulous of sf/fantasy artists, although for many years his prominence as an artist for Fanzines tended to overshadow his professional work; early illustration venues included George Scithers' Amra, Tom Reamy's Trumpet and the fanzine incarnation of Locus. He received little by way of formal art ...
Massively Multiplayer Online Game
Term used to describe a type of Videogame in which large numbers of players interact with each other in a persistent Online World. Various forms exist, including Space Sims, exemplified by EVE Online (2003), and First Person Shooters, such as the science-fictional PlanetSide (2003 Verant Interactive, Win) ...
Cash, Steve
(1946-2019) US country rock musician – he was lead singer for the Ozark Mountain Daredevils from its founding in 1972 – and author of The Meq sequence of sf novels, beginning with The Meq (dated 2003 but 2002), which describe, in fantasy-tinged diction, the lives of a kind of Pariah Elite which has hidden itself since time immemorial in the Basque lands of northern Spain. Meqs remain pre-adolescent until (at sight) they recognize ...
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 ...