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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 ...
Ruders, Poul
(1949- ) Danish composer. His opera The Handmaid's Tale (1998), with a libretto by Paul Bentley, is based on The Handmaid's Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood. The opera shifts the novel's epilogue, a symposium on the Republic of Gilead in 2195, to become a prologue, but otherwise follows the story of the handmaid Offred, her relationship with the commander Fred, and her arrest by the Eyes of God police force. The music ...
Allen, Roger MacBride
(1957- ) US author who began writing with the Torch Space-Opera series, The Torch of Honor (1985) and Rogue Powers (1986) – both assembled as Allies and Aliens (omni, rev 1995) – whose considerable impact may seem excessive to anyone familiar only with the books in synopsis, as neither might have appeared to offer anything new. The Torch of Honor begins with a scene all ...
Worth, Peter
A Ziff-Davis House Name used on magazine stories; it appeared in their various sf magazines ten times from 1949 to 1951, usually concealing Chester S Geier or Roger Phillips Graham (Rog Phillips). [PN] links / Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Boyne, John
(1971- ) Irish author, active from the early 1990s, best known for the essentially nonfantastic Young Adult The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: A Fable (2006), set in a slightly confabulated Auschwitz (see Holocaust Fiction; World War Two). Some of his other works for young adults and for children unmistakably elicit topoi from ...
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 ...