SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 15 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 ...
Crowley, John
(1942- ) US teacher and author who has also worked in documentary films and television since 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies have established him as a figure whose work markedly stretches the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars are ...
Sky Crawlers
Japanese animated film (2008). Production I.G, Polygon Pictures. Directed by Mamoru Oshii. Written by Chihiro Itō. Cast includes Ryō Kase, Rinko Kikuchi, Chiaki Kuriyama and Shōsuke Tanihara. 122 minutes. Colour. / In a world at peace, humanity's belligerent instincts find an outlet in a televised aerial Future War managed by competing private corporations (see ...
Grierson, Francis D
(1888-1972) Irish-born UK soldier, lawyer, journalist and author, in UK from about 1900, in active service during World War One; he is known mostly for detective fiction, much of it assembled in series including the Inspector Slim and Professor Wells sequence and the successor Chief Inspector George Muir and Superintendent Andrew Ash sequences. Grierson began to publish work of genre interest with "The Hall of the Dead" for ...
Danvers, Dennis
(1947- ) US author who concentrated on fantasy and horror for the first part of his career, which began with Wilderness (1991), an effective werewolf novel; he began writing sf novels with the Circuit of Heaven sequence comprising Circuit of Heaven (1998) and End of Days (1999), set in a somewhat fantasticated, highly febrile Virtual Reality environment, dominated by an afterworld-like ...
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 ...