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.
Site updated on 9 February 2026
Sponsor of the day: Conversation 2023
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 ...
Cameron, Claire
(1973- ) Canadian author whose third novel, The Last Neanderthal (2017), combines a Prehistoric SF narrative – whose Neanderthal protagonist finds herself intimately involved with a Homo sapiens male as the weather worsens – with the twenty-first century story of a pregnant archaeologist who, 40,000 years later, discovers her ancestor's bones. The close community of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens is ...
Creature from the Haunted Sea
Film (1961). Roger Corman Productions/The Filmgroup. Directed by Roger Corman. Produced by Corman and Charles Hannawalt. Written by Charles B Griffith. Cast includes Antony Carbone, Betsy Jones-Moreland, Blanquita Romero and Robert Towne (credited as Edward Wain). Narrator: Towne. 63 minutes, expanded to 75 minutes for television. Black and white. / After the Cuban Revolution a group of military officers wishes to flee the nation with much of its ...
Favenc, Ernest
(1845-1908) UK-born explorer, historian and author, in Australia from 1864, becoming famous for his explorations of the Australian interior from the mid-1870s on, though his histories and studies of Australian history, geography and culture were thought superficial, even at the time. His fiction was better received, especially for its vivid depictions of inland Australia; but did not make a serious impact. Novels of sf interest include The Secret of the Australian Desert (dated 1896 but ...
Lee, Thomas D
(? - ) UK academic, specializing in Arthurian studies, and author in whose first novel, Perilous Times (2023), the Once and Future King's brother is awakened into the perilous chaos of Near Future Britain, where fantasy topoi (including dragons; see Supernatural Creatures) and Climate Change markers signal a use of ...
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 ...