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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 ...
Cave, Peter
(1940- ) UK author who has only occasionally published work in the fantastic, the first known examples being "Cry Martian" in Impulse (see Science Fantasy) for May 1966 as Peter L Cave and "Scoop!" in Tit-Bits for 16 September 1967. From 1971 he wrote various Sex novels [not listed below] as by Petra Christian, both solo and in collaboration with Christopher ...
DC Extended Universe
Initially known by viewers and critics as the DC Cinematic Universe, in order to point out obvious similarities between the competing DC and Marvel Shared World imperiums, the DC Extended Universe provides a simpler narrative of origins and story-bibles than does the much larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, which was first promulgated in 2008. But Marvel Comics and its ...
Serial Films
In the early days of Cinema there was a considerable vogue for serial films divided into chapters or episodes intended for separate screening in weekly instalments, a famous nonfantastic example being the 20-part General Film Company/Eclectic Film Company melodrama The Perils of Pauline (1914), directed by Louis J Gasnier and Donald MacKenzie with the much-menaced Pearl White in the title role. Later serials introduced the tradition of breaking off at ...
Air Wonder Stories
US letter-size Pulp magazine, 11 issues, July 1929-May 1930, Stellar Publishing Corporation, edited by Hugo Gernsback, managing editor David Lasser. / This was a prompt comeback by Gernsback after the filing of bankruptcy proceedings against his Experimenter Publishing Company, with which he had founded Amazing Stories. Air Wonder Stories announced itself in its ...
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 ...