SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 12 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.
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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 ...
Annihilation
Film (2018). Paramount Pictures in association with Netflix presents a DNA Films, Scott Rudin Productions and Skydance Media production. Directed by Alex Garland. Written by Garland, adapted from the novel Annihilation (2014) by Jeff VanderMeer, which with Authority (2014) and Acceptance (2014) forms Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy (omni 2014). Cast includes ...
Tanner, Ron
(1953- ) US teacher, musician and author whose short fiction is usually nonfantastic though fruitfully exorbitant; his sf novel, Kiss Me, Stranger: An Illustrated Novel (2011), is a Satire set in a balkanized Dystopian America at a point seemingly close to the End of the World; attempting to keep her family together, the female protagonist runs through a gamut of ...
Disaster
Cataclysm, natural or manmade, is one of the most popular themes in sf. Tales of Future War and Invasion theoretically belong here, but for convenience are dealt with under those separate headings; see also Climate Change, End of the World, Holocaust, World War One, ...
Keller, David H, M D
(1880-1966) US author, physician and psychiatrist, deeply involved in the last capacity in World War One and its consequences, his work focusing on shell shock; he was one of relatively few American sf writers to have anything like the direct experience of War That Will End War that marked so many British authors, a fact that may help explain his abiding cultural pessimism (see Optimism and Pessimism), often expressed ...
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 ...