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Friday 13 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 ...
First Fandom Hall of Fame
A fan Award presented annually since 1963 by First Fandom, for contributions over 30 or more years to the field of science fiction. Such contributions may be as a fan, writer, editor, artist, agent, or any combination of these. This honour may be given to living persons or posthumously; each year now normally features Hall of Fame additions in both categories. / The award is one of several which by fan tradition have been ...
Giles, Harry Josephine
(1986- ) UK actor and author, in Orkney from childhood; active from around 2008. They are of sf interest for Deep Wheel Orcadia (2021), a book-length narrative poem whose original text, composed in Orcadian, is accompanied by an English version by the author whose seeming paraphrastic excesses constitute a critique of the ability of English words to capture complex realities. The tale is set in the Near Future on a ...
Wells, David A
(1828-1898) US engineer, economist, editor, inventor and author, mostly of nonfiction like The Science of Common Things (1857) and a very popular textbook, Wells's Natural Philosophy (1863); he was a free-trade advocate, holding influential positions during the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. He is of sf interest for Robinson Crusoe's Money; Or, the Remarkable Financial Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island Community (1876), ...
Skinner, B F
Working name of Burrhus Frederick Skinner (1904-1990), US psychologist and author whose vehemently argued (and as vigorously refuted) brand of behaviourism dominated that version of Psychology for many years in America, and provides the basic tenets for his one published work of fiction, Walden Two (1948), which depicts a Utopia whose inhabitants grow up as successful experiments in behavioural engineering on lines ...
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 ...