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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.
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 ...
Norton, Roy
(1869-1942) US author of many Westerns and some sf, beginning with The Vanishing Fleets (serialized at various dates during 1907 Associated Sunday Magazines; 1908), a Yellow Peril tale in which America is saved by a two scientists – father and daughter – who establish a Pax Aeronautica through the Invention of super "radioplanes" ...
Elite
Videogame (1984). Designed by David Braben, Ian Bell. Platforms: BBCMicro, Electron (1984); AppleII, C64, Spectrum (1985); Amstrad (1986); DOS, MSX (1987); Amiga, AtariST (1988); NES (1991); rev vt ArcElite, Archimedes (1991); rev vt Elite Plus, DOS (1991). / Elite's gameplay is a perfect fusion of exploration, trading, mining and combat which created its own subtype of ...
Man Who Saves the World, The
Turkish film (1982; original title Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam; vt Turkish Star Wars). Anıt Film. Directed by Çetin İnanç. Written by Cüneyt Arkın. Cast includes Aytekin Akkaya, Cüneyt Arkın, Hüseyin Peyda, Hikmet Taşdemir and Füsun Uçar. Colour. 91 minutes. / Set thousands of years in the future, the film opens with a narrator summarizing history up to that point, ...
Cowboys & Aliens
Film (2011). Dreamworks Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Reliance Entertainment in association with Relativity Media present an Imagine Entertainment/KO Paper Products/Fairview Entertainment/Platinum Studios production. Directed by Jon Favreau. Written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman & Damon Lindelof and Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby; story by Fergus & Ostby and Steve Oedekerk, based on Cowboys and Aliens (graph 2006) by Scott ...
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 ...