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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.
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 ...
MacLeod, Angus
(1906-1978) Scottish author of fiction and plays for Radio. His sf novels are The Body's Guest (1958), in which a yoga machine built by an Indian physicist switches identities (see Identity Exchange) between nine Scots and a bull, with mildly amusing results, and The Eighth Seal (1962), set on a Scottish Island where a Mad Scientist is ...
Bott, Claire
(? - ) UK poet, journalist and author whose first novel is a tie remotely associated with the Doctor Who universe: Time Hunter: The Clockwork Woman (2004) comprises the surprisingly intense and sophisticated first-person narrative of the eponymous Android driven by clockwork, an image of fantasy Bondage [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under ...
Sector General [series]
James White's long-running Series of Sector General stories, centred on the vast, multispecies Space Habitat whose full name is Sector Twelve General Hospital, are popular and likeable examples of Medicine-based sf. The sequence began with Hospital Station (stories November 1957-June 1960 New Worlds; coll of linked stories ...
Money
Love of money, being the root of all evil, has always played a leading part in literature, and sf is no exception: few plots could move without it. Precisely because it is so basic, however, speculative thought has rarely focused on it; it is one of those things that is habitually taken for granted. Money may change its form, and the dollar may be replaced by the Credit, but its centrality in human affairs is inviolable. / The commonest of all wish-fulfilment ...
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 ...