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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 ...
Waterloo, Stanley
(1846-1913) US editor, journalist and author who began to publish short fiction in the late 1860s; his first sf novel, The Story of Ab: A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man (1897; vt A Tale of the Time of the Cave Men: Being the Story of Ab 1904), is a juvenile culture-hero protagonists makes the Inventions required and acquires the necessary culture – along with strict monogamy on Eugenical lines made ...
Gilford, C B
(1920-2010) US teacher and scriptwriter and author – sometimes under pseudonyms not used for work of genre interest – whose sf novel, The Liquid Man (September 1941 Fantastic Adventures; 1969), features a biologist and a problem in undesired metamorphosis, the nature of which is clear from the title. In The Crooked Shamrock (1969) – which has a Ruritanian flavour though the ...
Colebatch, Hal
(1945-2019) Australian lawyer, the third son of the Australian politician Sir Hal Colebatch (1872-1953), and author of much nonfiction written from a conservative point of view. His career as a fiction writer was long restricted to the contribution of various Ties to Larry Niven's Man-Kzin Wars Shared World enterprise, beginning with "The Colonels' Tiger" in Man-Kzin Wars VII (anth ...
Tiphaigne de la Roche, C F
(1729-1774) French author of some works of fantasy with Proto-SF elements, three of which were miscellaneously assembled as Amilec; Ou la graine d'hommes qui sert à peupler les planétes (1753; trans anon as Amilec; Or, the Seeds of Mankind 1753), Zamar, député à la Lune par Amilec ["Zamar, Delegated to the Moon by Amilec"] [for full subtitle see Checklist] (1754 2vols) and ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...