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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
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
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 ...
Cassilis, Robert
Pseudonym of UK historian and author Michael Edwardes (1923-1990), who specialized in Indian history under his own name; as Cassilis, his sf novel, Winding Sheet (1978), posits a Near Future Britain where the monarchy has regained genuine power, though Scotland has become more or less autonomous, and a revolt is in the offing. Edwardes is not to be confused with the business executive and writer Sir Michael Edwardes, who gained his knighthood not ...
Glass, Matthew
Pseudonym of Australian-born doctor and author (1954- ), in medical practice in the UK for several years, whose first novel, Ultimatum (2009), is set mostly in a Near Future America where, by 2032, Climate Change has begun radically to affect coastal areas, with an estimated 25,000,000 citizens forced to retreat from the rising seas. These dire circumstances are soon submerged in ...
Aboriginal Science Fiction
US magazine published from Massachusetts by Absolute Entertainment Inc and, from December 1991, by the Second Renaissance Foundation Inc, edited by Charles C Ryan, first issue October 1986. It went through several changes of format, publisher and frequency. The original format was 24pp tabloid (17 x 11.25 in; about 430 x 290 mm), but it changed to letter-size (11.25 x 8.25 in; 290 x 210 mm) with #4 in 1987 when distributors claimed the magazine did not ...
Pier, Garrett Chatfield
(1875-1943) UK-born US author of Hanit the Enchantress (1921), in which a Yale expedition to Egypt discovers what seems to be a Lost World, into the heart of which the lead of the expedition plunges by Timeslip, where he falls in love with the spitting image of the twentieth century woman to whom he is betrothed. [JC]
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...