SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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.
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 ...
Military SF
War and especially Future War are enduring sf themes. The melodramatic excesses of Space-Opera warfare faded with the pulps, although they were never to die out entirely. Complementing such extravagance, there grew up a more disciplined and more realistic notion of the kind of armies which might fight interplanetary and interstellar wars, and the kinds of Weapons they might use. ...
Klaus, Susan
(? - ) US animal breeder, radio host and author of the Christian Roberts sequence of Florida-based Technothrillers, comprising Secretariat Reborn (2013) and Shark Fin Soup (2014); in the first tale, Roberts attempts to race the illegal Clone of famed thoroughbred horse Secretariat expose him (and the fragile plot) to an international crime syndicate; in the ...
Worlds of Fear
US Comic (1952-1953). 9 issues (numbered #2-#10). Fawcett Publications Inc. Artists include Bob McCarthy, Sheldon Moldoff and Bob Powell. Harry Harrison drew at least one story, whilst Otto Binder (as Eando Binder) wrote the text story for #5 (neither were sf). 36 pages: #2-#8 had three strips, #9 and #10 four: all had a short text story. #10 also had a one-page non-fiction piece recounting ...
Science-Fiction Collector, The
Canadian bibliographical Amateur Magazine (1976-1981), published by James Grant Books, Calgary, to #3, then by Pandora's Books Ltd; edited by J Grant Thiessen. With #9 (June 1980) the journal merged with the fanzine Age of the Unicorn, and was renamed Megavore: The Journal of Popular Fiction, but the title reverted to The Science Fiction Collector (sans hyphen) from issue #14 (30 May 1981). The ...
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 ...