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Thursday 12 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 ...
Wells, Hal K
(1899-1979) US author, in active service during World War One, who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Brass Key" in Weird Tales for February 1929. Much of his sf work – like Zehru of Xollar (February 1932 Astounding; 2008 ebook) – was Space Opera for Pulp journals, with a tendency to the lurid. Some of his ...
Holder, C F
(1851-1915) US naturalist, sportsman and author, mostly of nonfiction on nature or sport or both; two Young Adult tales are of sf interest: The Treasure Divers: A Boy's Adventures in the Depths of the Sea (1898), involving an Invention and mysteries Under the Sea; and ...
Brack, Vektis
A House Name used on three sf novels for Gannet Press of London in the early 1950s. The author or authors responsible for the first two are not identified: The "X" People (1953), which concerns an Alien Invasion, and Castaway from Space (1953), about an alien crashlanding, are both unremarkable; as is Odyssey in Space (1953), which concerns ...
Bernau, George
(1945-2005) US lawyer and author of three Alternate-History thrillers: in Promises to Keep (1988) a figure based on John F Kennedy recovers from the attempt to assassinate him; in Candle in the Wind (1990) Marilyn Monroe survives her semi-accidental overdose; and in Black Phoenix (1994), Germany acquires, at the end of World War Two, a super weapon that threatens to create a ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...