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Monday 9 February 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 February 2026
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Carver, Jeffrey A
(1949-2026) US author who began publishing sf with "... Of No Return" in Fiction Magazine for 1974. His first novel, Seas of Ernathe (1976), which serves as an introduction to the loose Star Rigger sequence of Space Operas, showed early signs of a love of plot and thematic complexity which would take him some time, and several novels, to control. The continuation, Star Rigger's Way (1978), for instance, combines quest ...
Antimatter
The concept in Physics that forms of matter may exist composed of antiparticles, opposite in all quantum properties to the particles which compose ordinary matter, has a special appeal to sf writers. The idea itself was first formulated by the physicist Paul Dirac (1902-1984) in 1930; the confirmation of the existence of such particles soon followed, with the discovery of the positron (antielectron) in 1932. However, although antiparticles have for many years been ...
Everything Everywhere All at Once
US film (2022; vt Ma de duochong yuzhou). AGBO, Ley Line, IAC Films, Year of the Rat, A24. Directed and written by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. Cast includes Jamie Lee Curtis, James Hong, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Harry Shum Jr, Jenny Slate and Michelle Yeoh. 139 minutes. Colour. / Downtrodden immigrant laundromat-owner Evelyn (Yeoh) is in the midst of an IRS tax audit when her mild-mannered husband Waymond (Quan) reveals that he is, temporarily, channelling the mind of a ...
Croft, Herbert
(1751-1816) UK barrister, lexicographer and author, best known for a nonfantastic roman à clef, Love and Madness (1780). He is of sf interest for the Kilkhampton series of Satirical sketches beginning with The Abbey of Kilkhampton; Or, Monumental Records for the Year 1980 (1780) [for further details see Checklist below]. Not specifically tied to this sequence, The Wreck of Westminster Abbey, Alias the Year 2000 ...
Thompson, Joyce
(1948- ) US author, often of works for children. Her first sf novel, The Blue Chair (1977), is set in an authoritarian Near Future where Immortality is restricted to those who have "earned" it; Conscience Place (1984) describes with quiet gravity an apparent Utopia hidden in the American West which is in fact populated by ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...