SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 10 November 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 9 November 2026
Sponsor of the day: David Cowhig
Davidson, Steve
(1958-2026) US fan (active with letters published in SF Magazines as early as 1978), editor and publisher. In 2012 he acquired the then-moribund Amazing Stories (which see), reviving it first as a lively website with a news and reviews blog, then with ebook and webzine issues, and – with help from Kickstarter funding – as a print magazine from August 2018 (#614 dated Fall 2018) to Summer 2020 (#619) with Ira ...
27th Day, The
Film (1957). Romson Productions/Columbia. Directed by William Asher. Written by John Mantley, based on his The Twenty-Seventh Day (1956). Cast includes Gene Barry, Valerie French, Azenath Janti, Arnold Moss, Stefan Schnabel and George Voskovec. 75 minutes. Black and white. / Some moments of good sense and sensible conversation can be extracted from the contorted implausibility and terrifying moral implications of this film, which was ...
Butler, Samuel
(1835-1902) UK artist, author, traveller and speculative thinker, whose family-induced sojourn in New Zealand 1859-1864 gave him raw material for Erewhon (see below) but did not cure him of his artistic inclinations; his best-known single work, the posthumously published autobiographical novel The Way of all Flesh (1903), describes the long conflict between Butler and his minister father, a conflict which also provided much of the force of the ...
Hopkins, Seward W
(1863-1919) US author of magazine adventure tales for journals like Argosy, and of two Lost Race titles: In the China Sea: A Novel (1894), which locates an advanced hidden civilization just inland from the sea in question, and depicts a Future War consequential upon its discovery; and Two Gentlemen of Hawaii: A Novel (anth 1894), which also climaxes in Eastern waters. ...
2001: A Space Odyssey [comics]
1. US oversized tabloid-format perfect-bound Comics publication. Publisher: Marvel Comics. Editor, writer, and artist: Jack Kirby; inker, Frank Giacoia. One issue dated 1976. / This "treasury edition" comics adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was part of the deal which led to Jack Kirby's brief return to Marvel Comics in the mid-1970s. ...
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 ...