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Sunday 22 March 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 18 March 2026
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Deighton, Len
Working name of UK illustrator and author Leonard Cyril Deighton (1929-2026), mostly not resident in Britain after 1969; author of spy novels, cookery books and some other nonfiction, but still perhaps best known for early espionage thrillers like The Ipcress File (1962), the first of the Secret File sequence which features the same undisciplined and unnamed secret agent, and the subsequent Funeral in Berlin (1964). The fourth volume of the series, ...
Dietz, William C
(1945-2026) US author who began to publish sf with War World (1986; vt Galactic Bounty 1997), the first volume of his Sam McCade sequence of sf adventures about an interstellar bounty hunter, which continued with Imperial Bounty (1988) and two further titles. The galactic venue of the series exhibits some interesting kinks, and McCade himself gradually gains individuality. Although the angle of approach differs – the protagonist this time ...
Peck, Bradford
(1853-1935) US businessman – he was President of a department store in Lewiston, Maine – and author of The World a Department Store: A Story of Life under a Cooperative System (1900), a Sleeper Awakes tale written under the influence of Edward Bellamy; the protagonist, revived in 1925, find himself in the great Cooperative City of Maine, a Utopia built in the shape of an ...
Lawson, Mark
(1962- ) UK broadcaster, journalist and author, active in UK literary circles from 1984, whose Alternate History tale, Idlewild, or Everything Is Subject to Change (1995), focuses on the Icon figures John F Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, both alive in 1993 and attempting a reunion as assassins hover. [JC]
Masters of Science Fiction
US tv series (2007; vt Stephen Hawking's Sci-Fi Masters). IDT Entertainment, Industry Entertainment, MOSF Productions, Reunion Pictures, for ABC. Producers include Ben Browning, Brendan Ferguson and Adam Goldworm. Directors: Harold Becker, Jonathan Frakes, Michael Petroni, Mark Rydell and Michael Tolkin. Writers: Sam Egan, Harlan Ellison, Josh Olson, Darnell Martin, Michael Petroni and Michael ...
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 ...