SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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 ...
Anderson, Allen
Working name of American artist Allen Gustav Anderson (1908-1995), sometimes credited as Fred Anderson or Anderson. Taking a correspondence course in commercial art with the Minneapolis-based Federal Schools, Inc (aka the Federal School of Applied Cartooning), he received his diploma in 1928 and worked for Fawcett Publications in Minneapolis as an artist 1929-1939, befriending fellow artist and early influence Norman Saunders. In 1940 Anderson went to New ...
Furney, Elliott E
(1848-1914) US medical doctor (based in St Louis, Missouri), inventor and author, whose Culture, a Modern Method (1891) applies techniques that might a century later be described as Genetic Engineering with Lamarckian implications, with the Invention of a process by which unhealthy cellular material is recast and rejuvenated; further experiments, where animals are – perhaps surgically – modified into ...
Westworld
Film (1973). Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed and written by Michael Crichton. Cast includes Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Yul Brynner, Alan Oppenheimer, Linda Gaye Scott. 88 minutes. Colour. / Westworld is set in a Near Future enclave somewhere in the western deserts of America, where the Delos corporation has recently constructed a trio of interconnected Theme Parks, ...
Van Hollander, Jason
(1949- ). American artist and author. A youthful fascination with the works of H P Lovecraft inspired the teenage Van Hollander to correspond with August Derleth and collect books from Arkham House, which would later employ him as a cover artist, beginning with Ramsey Campbell's anthology New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (coll ...
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 ...