John Clute, a Guest of Honor at Readercon 4, was born in Canada in 1940, he has lived in England since 1969 in the same Camden Town flat; since 1997, he has spent part of each year in Maine. Critic Guest of Honor at Readercon 4; received a Pilgrim Award from the SFRA in 1994; was Distinguished Guest Scholar at the 1999 International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts.

He was Associate Editor of the Hugo-winning first edition (Doubleday, 1979) of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, general editor Peter Nicholls; with Nicholls, he co-edited the second edition (St. Martin's, 1993), which won the British Science Fiction Special Award, the Locus Award, the Hugo, and the Eaton Grand Master Award. With John Grant, he co-edited the Encyclopedia of Fantasy (St. Martin's, 1997), which won the Locus Award, the Hugo, the World Fantasy Award, the Mythopoeic Society Award, and the Eaton Award. He wrote solo Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia (Dorling Kindersley, 1995) (Locus Award, Hugo), which is actually a companion, not an encyclopedia.

Book reviews and other criticism have been assembled in Strokes: Essays and Reviews 1966–1986 (Serconia, 1988), Readercon Award; in Look at the Evidence: Essays and Reviews (Serconia, 1996), Locus Award, and in Scores: Reviews 1993–2003 1993–2003 (Beccon, 2003). The Book of End Times: Grappling with the Millennium appeared in 1999. There are two novels: The Disinheriting Party (Allison and Busby, 1977) and Appleseed (Orbit/Little Brown, 2001; Tor, 2002), which was a New York Times Notable Book for 2002. The Darkening Garden: a Short Lexicon of Horror appeared in late 2006 from Payseur & Schmidt.

Other books include Houston Do You Read: Reviews 2003–2008, and a third edition of the Encyclopedia of SF, co-written and -edited with David Langford and Peter Nicholls (Editor Emeritus), due for publication online in late 2008, it is hoped: the book grows like Topsy.