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Saturday 14 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 ...
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Film (1983). Dino De Laurentiis. Produced by Debra Hill, John Carpenter. Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. Written by Wallace (but primarily by Nigel Kneale, uncredited). Cast includes Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin and Dan O'Herlihy. 98 minutes. Colour. / Not at all a true sequel to the "stalk and slash" Halloween films, this is a horror film with an sf rationale. Crazed Irish entrepreneur Cochran (O'Herlihy), ...
Ryan, Desmond
(1943-2011) UK-born journalist and author, in the US from 1967, whose very Near Future medical Technothriller, Helix (1979) with Joel N Shurkin, extrapolates from the real effects of Legionnaire's Disease to depict a virulent nationwide Pandemic. [JC]
Gateway S-F Magazine
A low- (and eventually non-) paying magazine which existed in both print and online editions, published by B Joseph Fekete Jr, North Hollywood, California; edited initially by Lawrence Green on the print edition and subsequently with an overall Editor-in-Chief (from 2003) John A M Darnell. The print issue ran for six issues, Winter 2000 to Summer 2003, all Digest size, saddle-stapled except for the last issue which was perfect bound, 144 pages. The online issue ...
Something Else
UK Semiprozine, three issues (Spring 1980, Winter 1980, Spring 1984), A4 format, published and edited by Charles Partington from Manchester. Print run was between 1000 and 1500 copies. This was a short-lived but brave attempt by Partington, who had previously edited Alien Worlds, to continue the New Worlds tradition. Many of the stalwarts of ...
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 ...