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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 ...
Dick Barton Strikes Back
UK film (1949). Hammer Film Productions. Directed by Godfrey Grayson. Written by Elizabeth Baron and Ambrose Grayson, based on a story by Ambrose Grayson. Cast includes Sebastian Cabot, Jean Lodge, James Raglan, Don Stannard and Bruce Walker. 67 minutes. Black and white. / Dick Barton – Special Agent was an extremely popular BBC Radio show that ran 1946-1951, with 10 serialized stories running over 711 15-minute episodes (plus a Christmas ...
Diabolical Plots
US Online Magazine of sf, Fantasy, and horror with a speculative element, devised by and published David Steffen, who continues to head its team of editors. Monthly, May 2008 to current. / Founded by David Steffen to establish his own writing career, the magazine's early issues featured short stories, reviews, and essays by the editor as well as interviews with him; interviewees include Cat Rambo ...
Science Fiction
Science Fiction may be described as an interwoven array of texts set in worlds which do not exist but arguably could. (Fantasy is set in worlds which are impossible but which the story believes.) The crunch in this formulation is what "arguably" means, how properly to distinguish the arguable from the imaginable in the great cauldron of story of Fantastika; it might be suggested that to unpack the meaning of and to ...
Nayler, Ray
(1976- ) Canadian-born US Foreign Service officer (concerned with environmental issues) and author, in the US from childhood, who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Ropes of the Lasso Inn" in Deathrealm for Winter 1996, his first sf story being "Mutability" (June 2015 Asimov's). His first novel, The Mountain in the Sea (2022), takes clear advantage of his professional work in its ...
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 ...