SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 16 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 ...
Moyer, J D
(? - ) US composer of electronic music and author, who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Beef" in Strange Horizons for May 2016. The Reclaimed Earth sequence beginning with The Sky Woman (2018) is set in a moderately distant Near Future after a complexly-caused set of Disasters, including one supervolcano, has devastated ...
Harrison, Niall
(1980- ) UK medical writer, editor and author, active from around 2003, both in Fandom and as a reviewer and critic. He served as Features Editor of Vector (2006-2011), and more demandingly for Strange Horizons as Reviews Editor (2006-2010) and as Editor-in-Chief (2011-2017). A large selection from the critical and review work he published during this period has been assembled as ...
Cornett, Robert
(1952-2022) US author who saw military service and also worked inter alia as paramedic, firefighter, postal worker, private investigator, and academic. He began to publish work of genre interest with Remember the Alamo? (1980; vt Remember the Alamo! 1986) as Robert Charles Cornett in collaboration with Kevin D Randle, opening the Time Mercenaries sequence of Military SF involving ...
McCartney, Paul
(1942- ) UK singer-songwriter who will forever be best known for being a member of the Beatles, although he has made innumerable recordings as a solo artist for over 50 years. He has displayed an occasional interest in sf in the course of his variegated career, mostly during the first decade. / One song on his album Red Rose Speedway (1973) is provocatively called "Loup (1st Indian on the Moon)" but has no lyrics to explain its title. "Nineteen Hundred ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...