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Monday 16 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 ...
Pease, Tom
(? - ) US author of Pudoria (1961), a Near Future Utopia, with some authoritarian implications: financial transactions are abhorred; money itself cannot be mentioned; free love (see Sex) is openly practised. [JC]
Alam, Rumaan
(circa 1977- ) US journalist and author whose third novel, Leave the World Behind (2020), comprises an acute analysis of racial/cultural stresses (see Race in SF) in the north-east corridor of America, after a very Near Future Disaster where New York is blacked out, leading the various protagonists of the tale to anticipate ...
Connelly, J H
(1840-1903) US author, associated with works in the occult, though he wrote at least one Western. The first of the two tales assembled as Neila Sen and My Casual Death (coll 1890) is sf, featuring an Invention which projects sounds via light; The Crystal's Secret (1892) is an sf story again involving an aspect of light: images of a murder are trapped in an ice crystal. [JC]
Ellis, Sara K
Working name for fiction of Sarah Kate Ellis (1971- ), US media executive and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Sub" in Ideomancer for December 2012. As Sarah Kate Ellis she became prominent around 2010 for her clearheaded, passionate advocacy of greater social tolerance (see Gender; Sex; Transgender SF). She is of greatest sf interest for ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...