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Thursday 12 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 ...
Mullin, Chris
Working name of UK politician (Labour member of Parliament for Sunderland South, 1987-2010) and author Christopher John Mullin (1947- ), whose loose Harry Perkins series begins with A Very British Coup (1982), a tale of justified Paranoia which depicts with fixated clarity the ultimately successful Near-Future US efforts to subvert a potential change for the better in the UK Government (see ...
Sanderson, Brandon
(1975- ) US author, of considerable significance for his Heroic Fantasies [for this term and for Robert Jordan see also The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], coming to wide notice with his continuations of Jordan's Wheel of Time sequence and his own Mistborn sequence [neither listed below]. Of sf interest is the ...
Owens, Clarke
(1951- ) US author whose nonfiction work consists mostly of literary criticism, including the unorthodox Biblical study Son of Yahweh: The Gospels as Novels (2013). Two of his novels are of sf interest: 600ppm: A Novel of Climate Change (2015), set in a Dystopian Near Future America where an alliance of profit-hungry corporations and a supine government has shut down any discussion ...
Crane, Nathalia
(1913-1998) US poet, teacher and author, precociously active as a poet from childhood, beginning with the publication of her first collection, The Janitor's Boy and Other Poems (coll 1924 chap), which was much influenced by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886); Time magazine referred to her at this time as "The Baby Browning of Brooklyn". After publishing some further work she enjoyed a long career as an academic and political activist. Samuel R ...
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 ...