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 ...
TV Sci-Fi Monthly
UK tabloid-size Cinema magazine. Published by Sportscene Publishers, Limited. No editor credit in early issues; later ones list Mick Farren as editor or co-editor. Eight issues, all with copyright date 1976; month not given. / An "oversize" publication which focused on various Television programmes, TV Sci-Fi Monthly carried Interviews and articles as well as its ...
Magazines
A term usually applied to periodicals, with the implication that they appear in the form of individual issues at regular or irregular periods, most commonly monthly, as distinct from books which, unless part of a series, are usually one-off publications. However, Anthologies, especially Original Anthologies, can also appear at intervals, though rarely monthly; and though some anthology series, such as ...
Threlfall, T R
(1852-circa 1933) UK politician, trade unionist and author; elected president of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in 1885, serving in various positions over the next decade or so. He failed in more than one election campaign, the last as a Lib-Lab candidate for Kirkdale in 1892, and subsequently focused on writing. The Sword of Allah (1899), which features a Scottish soldier of fortune at Medina, prefigures his sf novel, The Great Magician (1901), in which a ...
Smith, Oli
(? - ) UK author exclusively to date associated with the Doctor Who universe, having written several Ties: Nuclear Time (2010) for the Doctor Who New Series, Decide Your Destiny: Judoon Monsoon (2010) for the Doctor Who: Decide Your Destiny series, and the nonfiction The Eleventh Doctor: Matt Smith (2010) for the Doctor Who Nonfiction ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...