SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 14 March 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 March 2026
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Gurney, James
(1958- ) US illustrator, raised in California, who studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Gurney made his sf debut with a cover for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1982, but his real baptism of fire that year was working as one of only two background painters on the animated Sword-and-Sorcery film Fire and Ice (1982). Gurney, who works in oils, primarily ...
Metamorphosis Alpha
Role Playing Game (1976). Tactical Studies Rules (TSR). Designed by James Ward (1951-2024). / Metamorphosis Alpha was the first science fiction RPG. It is set on a Generation Starship (the "Warden") which has suffered an unspecified disaster many years in the game's past, a concept inspired by Brian Aldiss's novel ...
Paulsen, Gary
(1939-2021) US author who began publishing in 1966, at first mostly for adults, but who became best known for his fiction for the Young Adult market, where he was a significant figure since around 1980; he was highly admired for his pared-down but subtle style, and for his sensitive evocations of the American wilderness, which is central to much of his work. His first sf novels, beginning with The Implosion Effect (1976), are ...
Carnage
UK film (2017; vt Carnage: Swallowing the Past). BBC iPlayer. Directed and written by Simon Amstell. Cast includes Eileen Atkins, Linda Bassett, Lindsay Duncan, Vanessa Feltz, Martin Freeman, Gemma Jones, Joanna Lumley, Lorraine Kelly, Racheal Ofori, Mawaan Rizwan, Miles Sembi, Kirsty Wark and Robert Wilde. 65 minutes. Colour. / A documentary in the year 2067 attempts to come to terms with humanity's past, explaining to horror-struck viewers of the future that there was once a ...
Thorson, Alice Otillia
(1870-1929) US author of The Tribe of Pezhekee: A Legend of Minnesota (1901), in which Lost Race devices serve primarily to give depth to a local Minnesota legend. [JC]
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...