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Friday 13 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.
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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 ...
Bill Haley and His Comets
US rock-n-roll band, founded and fronted by Bill Haley (1925-1981); also listed on releases as Bill Haley and The Comets and Bill Haley's Comets. Haley's former group The Saddlemen performed an early (July 1951) cover version of what many historians of popular music consider the first true rock 'n' roll song, "Rocket 88" (1951) by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats (actually Brenston with Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm) – the title refers to the Oldsmobile car, ...
Karig, Walter
(1898-1956) US journalist, naval officer and author, a pseudonymous author for many years for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, including three Nancy Drew books as by Carolyn Keene, and various others. War in the Atomic Age? (1946 chap) compresses into very few pages – beginning with a description of World War Three in 1976 – a sequence of superscience duels between the USA and Galaxia, ...
Miral, Léon
Pseudonym of French journalist, playwright and author Ernest Jacob (1858-1942); with A Viger (whom see for publishing details), he published some sf tales in Le Petit Parisien, a journal for which he had worked at some point; these tales were signed either as by L Miral and A Viger or as by Miral-Viger. [JC]
Forever Young
Film (1992). Warner Bros. Executive producers Edward S Feldman and Jeffrey Abrams, produced by Bruce Davey, directed by Steve Miner. Written by Abrams. Cast includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Mel Gibson, Isabel Glasser, George Wendt and Elijah Wood. 101 minutes. Colour. / In 1939, when his girlfriend (Glasser) lapses into apparently terminal coma after being hit by a car, grief-stricken test pilot McCormick (Gibson) volunteers for a one-year experiment in ...
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 ...