SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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 ...
Wonder Stories
1. US SF Magazine which began as Science Wonder Stories, letter-size, with twelve monthly issues, June 1929 to May 1930, and then merged with Air Wonder Stories as Wonder Stories for a further 66 issues from June 1930 to April 1936, continuing the volume numbering from Science Wonder. Published by Hugo Gernsback's Stellar Publishing Corporation June 1929 to ...
Roberts, Charles G D
(1860-1943) Canadian poet and author, important in Canada's literary history, prolific in several modes from 1880 to 1941, brother of Theodore Goodridge Roberts; the posthumous collapse of his reputation came about partly because of the unyielding conservatism of his poetry (now forgotten except for warhorses), but also because his racism about Native Canadians (and others) has worn poorly. ...
Sommerfeld, Adolf
(1870-1943) German journalist and author of a Future War novel, Frankreichs Ende im Jahre 19?? (1912; rev 1914; trans Louis G Redmont as How Germany Crushed France: (The Story of the Greatest Conspiracy in History) 1915), in which Germany, trusting safely in the neutrality of Britain and Russia, utterly defeats France in a very Near Future 1915. / Sommerfeld should ...
Alien Nine
Japanese Original Video Animation (OVA) (2001-2002). Original title Eirian Nain. Based on the Manga by Hitoshi Tomizawa. J.C.Staff. Directed by Jiro Fujimoto and Yasuhiro Irie. Written by Sadayuki Murai. Voice cast includes Aya Hisakawa, Juri Ihata, Rei Sakuma, Kaori Shimizu and Noriko Shitaya. Four 30-minute episodes. Colour. / Twelve-year-old Yuri Otani's (Ihata) class elects her to be one of that year's ...
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 ...