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Thursday 12 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 ...
Russell, Gary
(1963- ) UK author who has concentrated almost exclusively on Ties for the Doctor Who universe, beginning with The New Adventures: Legacy (1994) in the Doctor Who: New Adventures sequence, his most recent title being Doctor Who: Beautiful Chaos (2009); The Torchwood Archives (2008) is a tie to the Television spinoff series, ...
Barney, John Stewart
(1867-1924) US architect, artist and author whose sf novel, L.P.M.: The End of the Great War (1915), is an unusually authoritarian Edisonade in which an impatiently triumphal US Scientist – in this case his name is Edestone – uses the Antigravity device he has invented to render invincible his vast Zeppelin (see Airships) which is called the ...
Leydenfrost, A
THe usual byline of US artist Alexander Leydenfrost (1888-1961), also credited simply as Leydenfrost, who was born in Hungary as Baron Sandor Leidenfrost; upon moving to America at the age of 34, he Americanized his first name to Alexander and changed the spelling of his last name. Trained as an artist in his native land, Leydenfrost emigrated to America in 1923 along with three friends, Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi, and Paul Lucas, who went on to successful acting ...
Sullivan, Sheila
(1927- ) Malaysian-born editor and author, in the UK from an early age; her critical nonfiction was usually written as Sheila Bathurst. Her sf novel Summer Rising (1975; vt The Calling of Bara 1976) depicts a Post-Holocaust adventure beginning in a London devastated by a slow collapse of civilization intensified by a Pandemic; the protagonist, who has ...
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 ...