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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 ...
Maras, Karl
A House Name of the London publishers Comyns/Paladin Press, used twice by Kenneth Bulmer and once by Peter Hawkins. [JC/DRL]
Glut, Donald F
(1944- ) US author who was the uncredited co-editor of Modern Monsters in 1966. His first publications of interest were such nonfiction studies as The Frankenstein Legend (1973) – the first of several fictional and nonfictional books on the Frankenstein Monster (see also Mary Shelley) – and The Dracula Book ...
Bruckner, Karl
(1906-1982) Austrian author almost all of whose 30 or so books – many of them written for children, many of them sf – remain untranslated. In Nur zwei Roboter? (1963; trans Frances Lobb as The Hour of the Robots 1964), Russian agents steal advanced Robot designs from America; fortunately, once the robots (named William and Natasha) are built, their mutual affection causes the world to look to peace. ...
Matheson, Richard Christian
(1953- ) US author and (primarily) writer for film and television, and television producer. Matheson's work has been at most only fringe sf; he is not to be confused with his father, Richard Matheson, nor with his younger brother Chris Matheson (1958- ), cowriter of the witty screenplay for Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) and its sequel ...
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 ...