SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 15 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 ...
Dann, Jack
(1945- ) US author and anthologist, with a BA in social/political science, married initially to Jeanne Van Buren Dann and from 1995 to Janeen Webb, with both of whom he has collaborated, mostly resident in Australia from about 1990; he began publishing sf in 1970 with "Traps" (March 1970 If) and "Dark, Dark the Dead Star" (July 1970 If), both written ...
Smyth, Clifford
(1866-1943) US editor of the New York Times Book Review 1913-1922, and author of The Gilded Man: A Romance of the Andes (1918), a Lost Race tale featuring the discovery of a living Incan civilization deep Underground beneath the South American Andes, boasting the high Technology necessary to maintain life in this redoubt, the Power Source for ...
Earley, George W
(1927-2020) US engineer and editor, involved in sf Fandom in the 1940s; his sf Anthology, Encounters with Aliens: UFO's and Alien Beings in Science Fiction (anth 1968), focuses on Aliens, including some tales of First Contact. [JC/DRL]
Hall, Austin
(1880-1933) US author who claimed to have written over 600 stories in various pulp genres, mainly Westerns. He began publishing sf and fantasy with "Almost Immortal" for All-Story Weekly, 7 October 1916. "The Rebel Soul" (30 June 1917 All-Story Weekly) and its sequel, the book-length "Into the Infinite" (12 April-17 May 1919 All-Story Weekly), ...
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 ...