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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 ...
Blot, Thomas
Pseudonym of US author William Simpson (1828-1910). In his sf novel The Man from Mars: His Morals, Politics and Religion (1891) the eponymous telepathic traveller tells of his Utopian world. Unfortunately – if his desire was to communicate widely – the human he contacts is a hermit. [JC]
Metzger, Robert A
(1956- ) US electrical engineer, technical journalist and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "An Unfiltered Man" for Aboriginal in September/October 1987, publishing his short fiction almost exclusively with that magazine until it ceased publication in 2001. As a Hard SF writer who has stated he has "the temperament of an engineer", he tends to write stories in which problems are solvable, ...
Cox, A B
(1893-1971) UK author, in active service during World War One; best known for detective stories as by Anthony Berkeley and as by Francis Iles. He also wrote some fantasies and at least two sf works: The Professor on Paws (1926), in which a man's brain is transplanted into the family Cat (see Identity Transfer), but – in an odd prefiguration of Daniel ...
Gatiss, Mark
(1966- ) UK actor and author, best known in his sometime capacity as a member of The League of Gentlemen, a comedy team on BBC radio and television since 1995, acting in and co-authoring a spin-off film, The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse (2005). Although not strictly science-fictional, The League of Gentlemen's work – mainly focusing on the fictional Northern English town of Royston Vasey – makes frequent reference to film and ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...