SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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 ...
Orphia
Slavonic science fiction and fantasy magazine published in English by SCC Computer, Sofia, Bulgaria; edited by Atanas Slavov. One issue appeared in February 1990, though it was intended as a monthly. It was printed in a large-Digest format (7.5 x 5.6 in; 192 x 142 mm), 220 pages on coated stock throughout and heavily illustrated, much in colour. Orphia was to be a showcase of sf and fantasy from Slavonic countries, including ...
Lindsay, Joan
(1896-1984) Australian painter and author; she was born Joan à Beckett Weigall into an Australian family prominent in the arts. Of some interest, for its spoofing of the Fantastic Voyage and of the Lost Race tale, is Through Darkest Pondelayo: An Account of the Adventures of Two English Ladies on a Cannibal Island (1936) as by Serena Livingstone-Stanley. Just as the publication of an excised framing ...
Numa Shōzō
Pseudonym of a controversial Japanese author, whose identity was never confirmed, but believed by many, including the National Library of Japan, to be a pen-name for Tetsuo Amano (1926-2008), an editor at the Shinchōsha publishing house. Amano once admitted to being Numa, but later retracted his confession. Other candidates, largely discounted, have included the authors Tatsuhiko Shibusawa and Ryūichi Tamura, as well as Yukio ...
Night of the Carrots, The
Estonian animated film (1998; original title Porgandite öö). Eesti Joonisfilm. Directed and written by Priit Pärn. Narration by Frank Boyle. 29 minutes. Colour. / Diego, lover of the round, hater of the angular, arrives at PGI hoping to book a room. A sprawling, architecturally unappealing structure, PGI is a hotel (perhaps also a sanatorium) and, as the queues outside attest, much in demand: getting a ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...