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Wednesday 11 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 ...
Boswell, James
(1906-1971) New Zealand-born painter and illustrator, in the UK from 1925, who sometimes signed his work Bos or Buchan; he was a member of the London Group of painters intermittently from 1927, where his passionate socialism had an ongoing impact on his contemporaries. His work shows the influence of German graphic artists like Georg Grosz and the British James Fitton (1899-1982); in turn, he influenced younger artists like Ronald Searle and Paul Hogarth. A suite of eight vividly premonitory ...
Zeta One
UK film (1969; vt The Love Slaves; vt Alien Women; vt The Love Factor). Tigon British Film Productions. Directed by Michael Cort. Written by Cort and Alistair McKenzie. Cast includes Dawn Addams, Anna Gaël, Robin Hawdon, Charles Hawtrey, James Robertson Justice, Wendy Lingham and Yutte Stensgaard. 86 minutes. Colour. / Spy James Word (Hawdon) seduces (or is seduced by) his boss's secretary, Ann Olsen (Stensgaard), and reveals to her the secret of the ...
Faber, Geoffrey
(1889-1961) UK publisher, in active service during World War One, founder of the London firm which bears his name; author of an in effect self-published Lost Race novel, Elnovia: An Entertainment for Novel-Readers (1925), a Scientific Romance in which the eponymous inhabited flying Island is discovered by an advanced aeroplane (see ...
Otherworld
US tv series (1985). Produced by Universal Television for CBS-TV. Created by Roderick A Taylor. Produced by Lew Hunter. Cast includes Jonathan Banks, Gretchen Corbett, Brandon Crane, Sam Groom, Chris Hebert, Jonna Lee and Tony O'Dell. Eight 48-minute episodes. Colour. / This short-lived series involved the adventures of the Sterling family: father Hal (Groom), mother June (Corbett), their sons Trace (O'Dell) and Smith (Crane in pilot, then Hebert) and their daughter Gina (Lee). While ...
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 ...