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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
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
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 ...
Eloy
German prog-rock band, founded in 1969 by guitarist, singer and songwriter Frank Bornemann (1952- ); named after the Eloi of H G Wells's Time Machine (the track "Eloy" on the band's first album [Eloy, 1971], sings their praises). It is not clear why Bornemann got the spelling wrong, or why he has persisted with it through decades of English-language recording. Early albums often contain, alongside a number of more ...
Lafferty, R A
(1914-2002) US author who worked in the electrical business until retiring to write full-time in 1970; he came to writing only in his forties, publishing his first sf, "Day of the Glacier", in The Science Fiction Stories for January 1960. Over the next twenty-five years (he reportedly retired from writing at the age of about seventy) he produced very many stories – about 200 have been published – and a number of novels. The ...
Marquardt, Michelle
(1971- ) Australian veterinarian, writer and editor, married to Bill Congreve. Her debut novel won the George Turner Prize for the best unpublished novel in 2000 and was published as Blue Silence (2002). The novel revolves around two earth-orbit Space Habitats, already at loggerheads over lifestyle and resources, on one of which an unknown Spaceship lands. ...
Stover, Leon E
(1929-2006) US editor and author, former professor of Anthropology at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he also taught sf courses, and science editor of Amazing 1967-1969. He was most active in sf in collaboration with Harry Harrison, editing with him Apeman, Spaceman: Anthropological Science Fiction (anth 1968), and writing with him Stonehenge (1972), a ...
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 ...