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Saturday 14 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 ...
Escape from LA
Film (1996). Paramount Pictures in association with Rysher Entertainment. Directed by John Carpenter. Written by Carpenter, Debra Hill, & Russell, based on characters by Carpenter & Nick Castle. Cast includes Steve Buscemi, Bruce Campbell, Peter Fonda, Valeria Golino, Pam Grier, Stacy Keach, Cliff Robertson and Kurt Russell. 101 minutes. Colour. / Sixteen years after the events of Escape from New York ...
Coma
Film (1978). MGM. Directed by Michael Crichton. Written by Crichton, based on Coma (1977) by Robin Cook. Cast includes Genevieve Bujold, Michael Douglas, Rip Torn and Richard Widmark. 113 minutes. Colour. / Crichton's most commercially successful film, Coma is a present-day thriller with one sf element: the use of hospital patients, deliberately put into irreversible coma by using poisoned ...
Perrotta, Tom
(1961- ) US screenwriter and author, most of whose fiction – like Election (1998), Little Children (2004) and The Abstinence Teacher (2007) – is nonfantastic. He is of sf interest for The Leftovers (2011), for which he also collaborated on the screenplay for the Television series The Leftovers (2014-2017). The basic tale is ...
Third Alternative, The
UK Semiprozine published by TTA Press, Ely and edited by Andy Cox; 42 issues, #1 [January] 1994 to Summer 2005. After a two-year hiatus it was reborn as the dark fantasy and horror magazine Black Static. The first ten issues were in A5 size, but from issue #11 (Winter 1996/1997) switched to A4 format; Black Static retained this format from #1 (September 2007) to #28 (April/May 2012) and from #29 (July/August 2012) changed – with what was now ...
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 ...