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Monday 9 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 ...
GURPS
Role Playing Game (1986). Steve Jackson Games (SJG). Designed by Steve Jackson. / Although it was preceded by such earlier attempts as Worlds of Wonder (1982 Chaosium) designed by Steve Henderson, Gordon Monson, Steve Perrin, Greg Stafford, Lynn Willis, GURPS (the Generic Universal Role Playing System) was the first widely popular attempt to produce a set of mechanics for ...
Adams, Jack
Collaborative pseudonym of US authors Tilghman Answorth Howard Lowe (1850-1894) and Mary Amanda Lowe (1856-1902). It may be that Mary Lowe's main involvement in their sf novel, Nequa, or The Problem of the Ages (1900; with additional nonfiction 2015), was her gaining publication for it after her husband's death. However, the copyright notice in the first edition lists only A O Grigsby and Mary P Lowe; Grigsby was the publisher of the newspaper Equity, jointedly ...
Gate, The
UK Semiprozine, irregular, three issues, published by Richard Newcombe, W Publishing, Peterborough; #1 (Summer) 1989 in pocketbook format edited by Maureen Porter (with help from the Peterborough Science Fiction Club); subsequent issues, #2 undated (Summer 1990) and #3 December 1990, A4 format, edited by Paul Cox. Besides fiction it ran film reviews by Kim Newman and book reviews by various hands. Despite the obvious efforts that ...
Ward, Dayton
(1967- ) US soldier, software developer and author whose career in the latter capacity succeed his eleven years active service in the Marine Corps, most of his stories and books located in various regions of the Star Trek universe, beginning with his first story, "Reflections" in Strange New Worlds (anth 1998) edited by Paula M Block, John J Ordover and Dean ...
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 ...