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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 ...
Craig, C W Thurlow
(1901-1985) UK author who served in World War One; his very Near Future sf novel, Plague Over London (1939), predicts that in World War Two, imminent at the time of writing, the Germans would employ nerve gas (see Poison) in an assault upon London. [JC]
Lynde, Francis
(1856-1930) US author, prolific in several popular genres, including detective thrillers and Westerns, these two forms being brought together in Scientific Sprague (coll of linked stories 1912), featuring the exploits of the eponymous detective-cum-engineer, who defends a Western railroad (see Transportation) against thieves, accidents and Inventions in the hands of villains. Several of ...
Doughty, Francis W
(1850-1917) US numismatist, scholar, screenwriter and author whose well written, ingenious and original dime novels (see Dime-Novel SF) have often been considered the finest examples of the category. His better stories present a succession of highly imaginative strokes, often with good historical backgrounds. The title figure in "The Man in the Black Cloak" (1886 The Boys of New York) as by P T Raymond – a man whose betrayal has turned him ...
Owen, Maurice
(1925-2008) Australian wholesaling company manager, resident in New Zealand for many years, and author of an sf tale for Robert Hale Limited: The White Mantle (1967), in which radical Climate Change – a new ice age – is set off by an Asteroid. [JC]
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 ...