SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 10 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
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
Delap, Richard
(1942-1987) US editor, reviewer and author who entered the sf world as a fan and soon began to publish book reviews, beginning with pieces in the Fanzine Granfalloon and Science Fiction Review and contributing to the department "The Future in Books" in Amazing Stories from November 1969 to May 1970. In Delap's F & SF Review he created a ...
SF
Pronounced "esseff", the preferred abbreviation of Science Fiction within the community of sf writers and readers, as opposed to the journalistic Sci Fi, a distinction that many older sf readers continue to adhere to, but which has become increasingly blurred, as in "The Science Fiction Issue" of The New Yorker (4-11 June 2012), whose masthead also describes its contents as "Sci-Fi". In this volume – as often elsewhere ...
Beresford, Leigh
Pseudonym of John Leigh Everett (circa 1941- ), an author whose single sf novel for Robert Hale Limited is Fantocine (1981), a picaresque tale of a born peculator or thief told somewhat in the ornate manner of Jack Vance. [DRL]
Tékumel
Role Playing Game setting. Designed by M A R Barker. / Tékumel is a richly realized future milieu, depicted in a Science Fantasy mode analogous to that employed by Marion Zimmer Bradley for her world of Darkover. The setting is arguably comparable with J R R Tolkien's Secondary World of ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...