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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 ...
Skinkle, Dorothy
(1927-1979) US author of an sf novel, Star Giant (1969), in which an Alien exiled to Earth must – like his earlier fellows who impersonated Hercules and Abraham Lincoln and others – make use of his excessive height and superior intellect to defend the planet. [JC]
Galaxy [music]
German/Swiss prog-rock band, founded in Frankfurt-am-Main in 1977, who sang in English. The songs on their one album release, Nature's Clear Well (1978) are mostly environmental in theme, with a Dystopian vision of urban living, and the hint ("I've Come From A World") of extraterrestrial intervention. [AR]
Speer, Flora
(1933-2024) US author of romantic fictions, mostly nonfantastic, almost all published in the last decade of the twentieth century. Her first work of sf interest, the loose Dulan's Planet sequence of Planetary Romance tales beginning with Destiny's Lovers (1990), presents a set of love stories and intrigues connected through Dulan's Planet, so-named after the archivist who long before (see Time Abyss) had ...
Suburban Commando
Film (1991). New Line Cinema. Directed by Burt Kennedy. Written by Frank Capello. Cast includes Shelley Duvall, Hulk Hogan, Christopher Lloyd and Larry Miller. 90 minutes. Colour. / This modest, affable sf comedy about a large, rough, humanoid Alien (pro wrestling star Hogan) who crashlands on Earth after being temporarily retired as an interstellar righter of wrongs, sets its sights rather low, and does quite well. The primitive but effective humour is in ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...