SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 15 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 ...
Hagedorn, Hermann
(1882-1964) US biographer and poet, active from around 1915, who is of sf interest for The Bomb That Fell on America (1946 chap), a poem (see Poetry) constructed as a Prediction of the new world created in the course of the "Trinity" project at Los Alamos: the new bomb may bring about the End of the World: "God have mercy on America!" But the Voice of God is unrelenting: "'The world is ...
Gosse, Edmund
(1849-1928) UK scholar and critic, best known for his initially anonymous autobiography, Father and Son (1907); exceedingly prolific as a reviewer and belletrist for many years. Of sf interest is his novel, The Secret of Narcisse: A Romance (1892), set in the sixteenth century in the French town of Bar-le-Duc, where the protagonist, a sculptor, manufactures (see Inventions) a Robot which much resembles a ...
Yes
UK prog-rock band, comprising vocalist Jon Anderson, guitarist Steve Howe (1947- ), keyboard player Rick Wakeman, bassist Chris Squire (1948-2015) and drummer Alan White (1949-2022). Yes's brand of prog has always veered towards the mystic-cosmic-astrological, and music therefore that, however technically well-made, is often dippy and rather wet. It is true that they started as a harder-edged band (their ...
Morressy, John
(1930-2006) US academic connected with Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire from 1968, latterly as Writer Emeritus; and author who, After two nonfantastic novels, began his sf career in December 1971 with "Accuracy" for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, where most of his short fiction appeared. Morressy's early books were generally Space Opera, through which medium he constructed a series of interesting ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...