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Thursday 12 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 ...
Highwayman, The
US tv series (1987-1988). Glen A Larson Productions/20th Century Fox Television for NBC-TV. Created by Glen A Larson, also executive producer. Directors included Rob Bowman, Douglas Heyes and Larry Shaw. Writers included Larson, Burt Pearl and Steven L Sears. Cast includes Jane Badler, Mark "Jacko" Jackson, Sam J Jones and Tim Russ. Narrator: William Conrad (uncredited). One 90-minute pilot film plus nine 60-minute episodes. Colour. / Sometime in the ...
Schmidt, Dan
(? - ) US author who has written a number of titles presumably on licence to, and as by Don Pendleton in the nonfantastic Executioners Shared World sequence. For the Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan sequence, which features the same protagonist, he wrote Dark Truth (2002), which has some fantastic content. Schmidt has also written horror in his own name. [JC]
Nanoware
Term occasionally used in sf for the hardware of Nanotechnology, as in Tom Cool's Infectress (1997), John DeChancie's Innerverse (1996) and Ian Watson's "Nanoware Time" (June 1989 Asimov's). [DRL]
Cloning of Joanna May, The
UK tv miniseries (1991). Granada/ITV. Produced by Gub Neal. Directed by Philip Saville. Written by Ted Whitehead from The Cloning of Joanna May (1989) by Fay Weldon. Cast includes Helen Adie, Brian Cox, Laura Eddy, Emma Hardy, Patricia Hodge, Siri Neal (Bethany) and Billie Whitelaw (Mavis). 180 minutes. Colour. / Obsessive business tycoon Carl May (Cox) effectively Clones his wife Joanna (Hodge), then repudiates ...
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 ...