SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 16 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: The League of Fan Funds
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 ...
Belloc, Hilaire
(1870-1953) French-born author, in UK from an early age (naturalized in 1902); known for his poetry, notably The Bad Child's Book of Beasts (coll 1896 chap) for children, plus his many ballades successfully adopting the medieval French form; for his anti-Semitism (he never abandoned his belief in the guilt of Dreyfus); for his Roman Catholic apologetics; and for his novels. Most of his fiction was written either to argue a political case (he was a disputatious Liberal MP ...
Street Hawk
US tv series (1985; vt Falconer). Limekiln/Templar Productions in association with Universal Television for ABC-TV. Created by Paul Belous and Robert Wolterstorff. Developed by Bruce Lansbury. Directors included Richard Compton, Harvey S Laidman, and Paul Stanley. Writers included Nicholas Corea, Karen Harris, L Ford Neale, and Shel Willens. Cast includes Joe Regalbuto, Rex Smith and Jeannie Wilson. 13 55-minute episodes. Colour. / Police public relations officer Jesse Mach ...
Sidney, A
(? -? ) UK author of Destination Unknown (1928), a Lost Race tale set in Africa. [JC]
Prisons
Scenarios of future Crime and Punishment frequently include prison facilities, ranging from mild extrapolation of present-day institutions to highly exotic variants from which escape is theoretically impossible but nevertheless often takes place. Influential nonfantastic precursors of sf prisons, featuring just such more or less remarkable breakouts, include the real-world, Island-based Château d'If of Alexandre ...
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 ...