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 ...
Kenward, James
(1908-1994) UK author, mostly of nonfiction studies and memoirs. Summervale: A Fantasy (1935) is a tale in which a man is transformed into a Dog. The framing narrative of The Story of the Poor Author: And Some of the Stories He Told (coll of linked stories 1959) is sf, involving Spaceships; the stories told are various. [JC]
Palahniuk, Chuck
Working name of Charles Michael Palahniuk (1962- ), US author of transgressive fiction and Satire, some of whose works apply genre devices disruptive to the mundane modern world in which they are ostensibly set (see Equipoise). A graduate from the University of Oregon School of Journalism, Palahniuk found success with Fight Club: A Novel (1996), one of several works lampooning ...
Tartar
Pseudonym of the unidentified author (? -? ) of The Comet (1857 chap), a novella narrated in a New Zealander frame (though it is narrated from Melbourne): fifty years earlier, civilization is ended by Disaster after disaster as a great Comet approaches Earth, overheating the planet so that Blacks, better able to sustain the fire next time, take over ...
Deegan, Jon J
A House Name created by Gordon Landsborough, editor of Authentic Science Fiction, and used perhaps exclusively by UK author Robert George Sharp for material published in that journal, which for some time early in its run filled each issue with one long story (in this encyclopedia, one-story issues are treated as books). The Old Growler space exploration series, ...
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 ...