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Wednesday 18 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 16 February 2026
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Doney, Nina Murnie
(1884-1958) US author of My Life on Eight Planets; Or, a Glimpse of Other Worlds (1923), an sf tale tinged with an occult aura, whose protagonists enjoy a Fantastic Voyage through the Solar System, taking on a new incarnation upon each planet; each world has a distinct civilization which is described through new eyes, as the travellers undergo a form of Reincarnation at each ...
Pickover, Clifford A
(1957- ) US scientist, journalist and author, best known for a wide range of nonfiction texts in which narrative illustrations from Mathematics and Biology and other sciences are used to stimulate the creativity and to awaken the urge to numeracy in his readers. These include Computers, Pattern, Chaos, and Beauty (1990) (see Computers), ...
Sword, The
US rock band formed in Austin, Texas in 2004, active until 2022. Initially lumped in with stoner rock bands of the period, by the time of their concept album Warp Riders (2010) they had moved in a more traditional heavy metal direction. This spirited but somewhat unvarying record, with good riffs and monotonous vocals, is set on the fictional planet Acheron, and tells of the archer Ereth, who is banished from his tribe, discovers a mysterious orb, meets various archetypal figures ...
Star Blaster
US letter-size Cinema magazine printed on newsprint. Publisher: Windsor Communications Incorporated. No editor named. Ten (?) issues from 1983 to 1986. Publication schedule was roughly quarterly. / This title, one of several attempting to emulate such Media Magazines as Fantastic Films and Starlog, did so with modest success. Films covered included ...
Musgrave, David
(1973- ) UK artist and author whose first novel, Lambda (2022), is set in an Alternate World version of London co-inhabited by humans and lambdas, the latter being extremely tiny aquatic mammals, unregistered immigrants who establish a Wainscot Society in an unexpectedly welcoming United Kingdom. Sadly, a bombing unconnected to the lambdas excites the ...
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 ...