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Monday 16 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 ...
Mars
For a long time Mars seemed to be the most likely abode for life outside the Earth, and for that reason it has always been of cardinal importance in sf. Its surface, unlike that of Venus, exhibits markings that have for a long time been visible (albeit unclearly) with the aid of optical telescopes, and has a distinct red colour. Early observers interpreted what they saw in terms of analogies with terrestrial phenomena: blue-green tracts interrupting the red were ...
Creswick, Paul
(1866-1947) UK author, who began publishing work of some genre interest with "The Only Prince" for The Quarto in 1897. Robin Hood and His Adventures (1902; vt Robin Hood 1917) is one of the finest adaptations of the cycle; The Beaten Path: A Fantasy (1924) is a capable ghost story. His only Scientific Romance, The Turning Wheel (1928), is of interest for its combination of mystical themes with ...
Wilcox, Henry S
(1855-1924) US lawyer and author whose first novel was Flaws (1885; vt A Strange Flaw 1906) initially as By a Lawyer, in which a small fraud concatenates into a country-shaking scandal. He is of genre interest for his second novel, a Lost Race tale: The Great Boo-Boo: A Tale of Fun and Fancy, Replete with Love, Wit, Sentiment and Satire (1892), an early American example of pornographic sf, though ...
Contagion
Film (2011). Warner Bros, Participant, Imagenation Abu Dhabi. Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Written by Scott Z Burns. Cast includes Tien You Chui, Marion Cotillard, Bryan Cranston, Matt Damon, Jennifer Ehle, Laurence Fishburne, Elliott Gould, Griffin Kane, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Winslet. 106 minutes. Colour. / Contagion is a fiction film depicting the stunningly rapid spread across the planet of a coronavirus originating zoonotically from a single infected pig ...
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 ...