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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 ...
Ultimo Uomo della Terra, L'
Film (1964; vt The Last Man on Earth). La Regina/Alta Vista. Directed by Sidney Salkow, Ubaldo Ragona. Written by Logan Swanson (pseudonym of Richard Matheson, who disliked the rewrite), William P Leicester, based on Matheson's I Am Legend (1954). Cast includes Franca Bettoia and Vincent Price. 86 minutes. Black and white. / This Italian/US coproduction was the first film version of Matheson's novel about the lone survivor of ...
Godwin, Francis
(1562-1633) UK bishop and author, most noted for his striking description of a lunar Utopia in the posthumously and anonymously published The Man in the Moone: Or A Discourse of a Voyage Thither by Domingo Gonsales, the Speedy Messenger (1638). There is considerable debate over the date of composition, some suggesting it was written as early as 1588 after Godwin heard Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) lecture at Oxford, though most recent theories suggest it ...
Tregaskis, Richard
(1916-1973) US war correspondent and author, best known for his first book, the nonfiction Guadalcanal Diary (1943). He is of sf interest for a Near Future Technothriller, China Bomb (1967), in which an elite team of commandos must dismantle a Chinese H-bomb before it can destroy the American Seventh Fleet. [JC]
Morris, Janet E
(1946-2024) US defence specialist and author who gained some note as bass player 1972-1975 in the band named after her husband, Chris Morris; he subsequently collaborated with Morris on several sf novels, always as Chris Morris. She herself began writing with the ambitious Silistra sequence, comprising High Couch of Silistra (1977; rev vt Returning Creation 1984), The Golden Sword (1977), ...
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 ...