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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.
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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 ...
Forrest, Aston
Pseudonym of the unidentified author (? - ) – probably UK – of the sf tale which makes up the bulk of The Extraordinary Islanders: Being an Authoritative Account of the Cruise of the "Asphodel", as Related by her Owner (coll 1903); his second story, much shorter, is of little sf interest. The sf story is a Satire on the now antiquated version of the Imaginary Voyage ...
Nevitt, Barrington
(1908-1995) Canadian engineer, broadcaster and author, who began his career as a radio operator with the Canadian Marconi Company in 1928-1929; he was associated for many years with Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), with whom he collaborated and about whom he wrote Who Was Marshall McLuhan?: Exploring a Mosaic of Impressions (1995) with Maurice McLuhan. Of sf interest is Captain Gulliver's Interplanetary Travels (1986) with Maurice Hecht, which recasts the original (see ...
Modern Monsters
Letter-size saddle-stapled Cinema magazine printed on newsprint-quality paper. Publisher: Prestige Publications. Four bimonthly issues, April 1966 to October/November 1966. Editors: Gunther Collins and Donald F Glut (uncredited). / A good-quality magazine which tried to imitate Famous Monsters of Filmland, although with a slightly more mature slant. Modern Monsters ran the ...
Gladstone, Max
(1984- ) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "On Starlit Seas" in The Book of Exodi (anth 2009) edited by Michael K Eidson; he is best known for The Craft Sequence beginning with Three Parts Dead (2012), which submits the City at its heart [for Urban Fantasy see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] to a series of ...
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 ...