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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 ...
Starforce: Alpha Centauri
Board and counter Wargame (1974). Simulations Publications Inc (SPI). Designed by Redmond Simonsen. / Probably the first widely popular science fiction Wargame, Starforce is a game of non-lethal interstellar combat, played on a hexagonal grid map with cardboard counters. The game is set in a detailed Future History which features frequent ...
Lovelock, James
(1919-2022) UK environmentalist, biologist and author whose proposal of the Gaia (which see) hypothesis in Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979; rev 2000) has had considerable influence on sf and the old concept of Living Worlds. He credited William Golding for suggesting in the late 1960s that his then evolving hypothesis be named after the Greek earth-goddess Gaia. His ...
Object Collection
US experimental theatrical and musical company formed in New York in 2004 by writer and stage director Kara Feely, and musician and composer Travis Just. They have produced a number of unconventional operas and performance pieces, including the "Utopian Space-Opera" You Are Under Our Space Control (album 2019; multimedia theatrical premiere 2020). The bare bones of the story – humans leaving a depleted earth to ...
Burton, Tim
(1958- ) US filmmaker, resident in the UK since 2002, all of whose films have been fantasy of one kind or another. An animator by background who has intermittently returned to the medium, Burton made his live-action debut on Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985) and had a surprise hit with his second feature Beetlejuice (1988), which landed him the high-stakes job of directing Warner's prize project Batman. A major success, it led to three ...
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 ...