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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.
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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 ...
Dawe, W Carlton
(1865-1935) Australian author, in UK from 1892, mostly of detective thrillers; of sf interest is The Golden Lake; Or, the Marvelous History of a Journey Through the Great Lone Land of Australia (1890), a Lost Race tale set in Western Australia, the current native inhabitants of which reflect wanly (see Devolution; Race in SF) the civilization of their Chinese (or possibly Lemurian) ...
Henneberg, Charles
Working name of German author Charles Henneberg zu Irmelshausen Wasungen (1899-1959), for whose writings with Nathalie Henneberg as N C Henneberg, see her entry. [JC]
Superhero 2044
Role Playing Game (1977). Gamescience. Designed by Donald Saxman. / Superhero 2044 is the earliest example of a professionally produced Role Playing Game based on the mythology of the Superhero. (A first edition was self-published in 1977 as Superhero '44, inspired by an unreleased game created by John M Ford.) Its most ...
Cli-Fi
Item of Terminology coined by obvious analogy to Sci Fi and denoting speculative fiction about Climate Change (which see for this encyclopedia's main discussion of the topic). As with the "critical" term High Concept in its 2020s sense, "Cli-Fi" was coined and became fashionable almost entirely outside the world of sf and sf criticism (see ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...