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Saturday 14 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 ...
Bliss, Robert
(1937- ) US author of a Near Future sf adventure with touches of the Technothriller, A.N.G.E.L.S., Inc (1999). [JC]
Space Detective
US Comic (1951-1952). Four issues. Avon Periodicals, Inc (see Avon Comics). Artists include Tex Blaisdell, Gene Fawcette, Joe Orlando and Wally Wood. Writers of scripts include Walter Gibson. Each issue has four comic strips, plus one or two short text stories (except #2). / Wealthy young philanthropist Rod Hathway's hobby is "relieving the miseries of the poor", but he also has a secret identity: ...
Life After People
US tv series (2009-2010). Flight 33 Productions for The History Channel. Created by David de Vries. One two-hour pilot film plus 20 45-minute episodes. Colour. / This unusual Thought Experiment series speculated on what might happen to various places and landmarks of the world if humanity should suddenly vanish for unspecified reasons. The timeline for each episode typically started at one day after the event, then one week, one month, one year, ...
Lea, Alec Richard
(1907-2003) Canadian-born author, in UK from childhood; the protagonists of The Outward Urge (1944) protagonists escape a Near Future totalitarian Dystopia via Time Travel to a better land, inhabited by Druids. [JC]
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 ...