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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.
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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 ...
Shurkin, Joel N
(1938- ) US journalist (winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1979) and author whose very Near Future medical Technothriller, Helix (1979) with Desmond Ryan, extrapolates from the real effects of Legionnaire's Disease to depict a virulent nationwide Pandemic. [JC]
Léourier, Christian
(1948- ) French author, author of Les montagnes du soleil (1972; trans anon as The Mountains of the Sun 1973), an interesting socio-anthropological novel mapping the rediscovery of Earth after a cataclysmic deluge (see Disaster; Religion; Ruins and Futurity). Léourier has since written principally for children. [MJ]
Monster Mag
UK oversize Cinema poster magazine printed on slick paper. Publisher: Top Sellers Limited. Editors: Jan and Roger Cook to #14; Dez Skinn thereafter. 17 numbered issues from 1973 to 1976. / An early Splatter Movie publication, Monster Mag carried brief one- to three-page articles on such then-current films as The Exorcist (1973) and The ...
Wadsworth, Phyllis Marie
(1910-2005) UK author whose Overmind (1967) deals with Aliens who contact humanity via Telepathy from another Dimension, with news of the coming birth of a Messiah. [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 ...