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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 ...
Alexander, Alma
Pseudonym of Yugoslavian-born author Alma Alexander Hromic Deckert (1963- ), whose childhood was spent in Africa, her early adulthood in New Zealand, and who is currently in USA; active as an author of nonfantastic work from around 1995, and since that date mostly as an author of fantasy. Her first sequences, including the Changer of Days series, beginning with Changer of Days, Volume One (2001; vt The Hidden Queen 2005), and the ...
Florman, Samuel C
(1925-2024) US civil engineer and author, who wrote competent essays and nonfiction books on his subject of concentration; his one sf novel, The Aftermath: A Novel of Survival (2001), less impressively follows the story of a batch of engineers who survive the Holocaust, founding a town they call Engineering Village in South Africa; and proceed from triumph to triumph. [JC]
Coates, John
(1912-1963) UK playwright and author, not to be confused with the English tenor John Coates (1865-1941); his Tomorrow's Child: A Comedy in Three Acts (performed 1946; 1947 chap) is set in the over-disciplined Near Future society of 1965 Britain. Here Today (1949) is a Time Travel tale about a man who claims to have wooed Jane Austen. [JC]
Beware
US Comic (1953-1955). Trojan Magazines Inc. Fourteen issues numbered #13-#16, then #5-#14. Artists include Myron Fass, Art Gates, Harry Harrison, Henry Kiefer and Leo Morey. Scriptwriters include Richard Kahn, Jack Miller, Paul S Newman and Martin Smith. 36 pages, with four long strips and a text story. / Beware was acquired from Youthful Magazines (see ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...