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Friday 13 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.
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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 ...
Todd, G X
(? - ) UK librarian and author who is of sf interest for The Voices sequence beginning with The Defender (2017), set in a Near Future Disaster-riven massively depopulated America whose survivors, haunted by imperative voices in their heads, begin to behave in an atavistically "pre-conscious" manner, specifically linked by Todd to Julian ...
Godwin, Parke
(1929-2013) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Unsigned Original" for Brother Theodore's Chamber of Horrors (anth 1977) edited by Marvin Kaye "and Brother Theodore". Godwin was for some years more or less equally associated with fantasy and sf, though most of the stories assembled in The Fire when It Comes (coll 1984) are the former, the title novella winning a 1982 ...
Transmutation
According to tradition (though many prefer a more mystical interpretation), the great goal of those proto-Scientists the alchemists was the transmutation of elements – specifically of base metals, usually lead, into gold, by means of the elusive Philosopher's Stone. Examples of gold-making facilitated by sf Inventions rather than the devices of fantasy include J B Harris-Burland's ...
Muñoz, Gloria
(1987- ) US poet, translator and author of Colombian ancestry whose first novel, This Is the Year (2025), atmospherically depicts the sensory and broader effects of Climate Change in Near-Future Florida upon its Young-Adult cast. The protagonist, stricken by the death of her twin sister in a car crash, is given the chance to join a privatized mission to the ...
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 ...