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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 ...
Stoughton, Richard P
(? - ) US author whose sf novel, Ultima One (1980), depicts a Disaster in space that affects Earth; there is some sense that Homo sapiens has been morally culpable. [JC]
Skolsky, Syd
(1917-1998) US author, mostly on musical subjects; her sf novel, The Affectionism Society: A Love Story in a Futuristic Setting (1977), is a Near Future First Contact tale in which humans and the Alien Vars begin to understand each other through the problematics of Sex. [JC]
Alexander, James B
(1831-1914) US author whose sf phantasmagoria, The Lunarian Professor and His Remarkable Revelations Concerning the Earth, the Moon and Mars; Together with an Account of the Cruise of the Sally Ann (1909), might have been excluded from this encyclopedia on the grounds that the insectoid Lunarian pedagogue and all that he surveys turn out to be a dream – were it not that Alexander's imagination, though patently influenced by H G Wells, is too ...
Astounding She-Monster, The
Film (1957; vt Mysterious Invader UK). Hollywood International Pictures, American International Pictures. Produced and directed by Ronald V Ashcroft (credited as Ronnie Ashcroft). Written by Frank Hall and Ashcroft (uncredited) from their original story. Cast includes Robert Clarke, Kenne Duncan, Marilyn Harvey, Shirley Kilpatrick and Jeanne Tatum. 62 minutes. Black and white. / Geologist Dick Cutler (Clarke) is in the ...
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 ...