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Wednesday 1 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 29 June 2026
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Butler, Jack
(1944- ) US author and college teacher, much of whose fiction – like his first novel, Jujitsu for Christ (1986) – has dealt in non-fantastic terms with his native US South, though always with a sometimes gonzo sense that the envelope of mimesis must be pushed to capture his native territory. In this he is similar to southern regionalists such as Fred Chappell and Donald ...
Swayne, Martin
Pseudonym of Scottish-born UK psychiatrist and author Henry Maurice Dunlop Nicoll (1884-1953), who wrote nonfiction as Maurice Nicoll; in active service during World War One as a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps at Gallipoli and elsewhere. The Apes as Human creature in an early story, "Sir Clifford's Gorilla" (24-31 July 1913 Strand Magazine), is a hoax. Some later stories ...
Sher, Antony
(1949- ) South African-born actor and author, mostly in UK from 1968; of his four novels, The Feast (1998) incorporates sf elements into a complexly Equipoisal narrative set in an unnamed Near Future African state after its brutal dictator has been deposed and (seemingly) killed. This profound disruption to the reality structure of the fragile state causes literal convulsions in the ...
Graf, B J
(1970- ) US teacher and author whose first novel, Genesys X (2020), combines noirish police procedural and sf in a tale, set in a Near Future Los Angeles (see California) gripped by illegal Drugs and a Pandemic descended from Alzheimer's Disease. The protagonist, tracing the roots of much of this malaise to ...
Townsend, Sue
(1946-2014) UK author best known for the nonfantastic Adrian Mole sequence [not listed below]; of sf interest is the Satirical Queen sequence beginning with The Queen and I (1992) [see Checklist for theatrical versions], set in a Near Future republican Britain where the royal family, relocated into a council estate, must learn to cope with real life. The ex-Queen (all characters retain their historical names) ...
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 ...