SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 10 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: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
Hansen, Rob
(1954- ) UK fan, active in Fandom since the mid-1970s, who has edited and co-edited numerous Fanzines including his debut production Epsilon (18 issues 1976-1985) and Pulp (19 issues 1986-1991); his artwork has appeared in many fanzines including his own. He was the 1984 TransAtlantic Fan Fund delegate (see Fan Funds). From 1987 he has released the ...
Ferret
(? - ) Pseudonym of the artist and illustrator Tim MacNamara, sometimes referred to as Tim Ferret. He was a regular contributor to New Pathways and Science Fiction Eye. In collaboration with K W Jeter he reportedly wrote the bulk of Alligator Alley (1989) as by Mink Mole and Dr Adder. In this novel "Mink Mole", the metamorphic protagonist ...
Perry Rhodan
German sf Space Opera series; individual instalments (mostly novellas) are published weekly by Verlagsunion Pabel Moewig (formerly Moewig-Verlag). Created by Walter Ernsting (who wrote for the series as Clark Darlton) and Karl-Herbert Scheer. Perry Rhodan began in 1961 and is still current: by the 2020s, more than 3000 short volumes in the main series describing ...
Calhoun, Kenneth
(? - ) US academic and author whose first novel, Black Moon (2014), combines, with some Equipoisal grasp, a Near Future Zombie apocalypse setting in an afflicted America, with an almost metafictional contemplation of the effects of sleep deprivation on human beings. The protagonist – one of the few who retains the capacity to sleep after an event ...
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 ...