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Sunday 15 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 ...
Markov, Georgi
(1929-1978) Bulgarian engineer, screenwriter and author, whose first novel, Pobeditelite na Aiaks: Nauchno-fantastichen roman ["The Conquerors of Ajax"] (1959), which is sf, describes an interstellar expedition to the planet Aiaks [Ajax], in an attempt to recapture meaning for humans after centuries of austere Utopia on Earth. After a difficult career in Communist Bulgaria, Markov came to the UK around 1970, where he wrote commentary for the BBC. For ...
Dead Zone, The
Film (1983). Dino De Laurentiis Company, Lorimar Film Entertainment. Directed by David Cronenberg. Written by Jeffrey Boam, based on The Dead Zone (1979) by Stephen King. Cast includes Brooke Adams, Jackie Burroughs, Nicholas Campbell, Simon Craig, Colleen Dewhurst, Géza Kovács, Herbert Lom, Martin Sheen, Tom Skerritt, Sean Sullivan, Christopher Walken and Anthony Zerbe. 103 minutes. ...
Armageddon
Film (1998). Touchstone Pictures (see The Walt Disney Company) presents a Jerry Bruckheimer production in association with Valhalla Motion Pictures. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Michael Bay, Gale Anne Hurd. Directed by Michael Bay. Written by Jonathan Hensleigh, J J Abrams, Tony Gilroy, Shane Salerno, Robert Roy Pool. Cast includes Ben Affleck, ...
Cook, Diane
(? - ) US author whose short stories, assembled as Man v. Nature (coll 2014), manifest a twenty-first century sense that Homo sapiens's occupancy of the planet, and of our claims to pre-emptive Identity, are both fragile. The title story, set on a lifeboat in a vast expanse of ocean, follows the three survivors' attempts to make sense of the End of the World by ...
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 ...