SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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 ...
Paul
Film (2011). Columbia Pictures in association with Relativity Media presents a Working Title/Big Talk production. Directed by Gregg Motola. Written by Frost and Pegg. Cast includes Jason Bateman, Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Seth Rogen (voice), Sigourney Weaver and Kristen Wiig. 104 minutes. Colour. / Two British sf fans on a US road trip from Comic-Con via the UFO trail pick up a sweary, wisecracking Roswell Alien newly escaped from ...
Liston, Edward
(1900-1986) UK-born physician, flight surgeon and author, naturalized as a US citizen in 1932; in his Lost Race novel, The Bowl of Night (1948), a flight surgeon crash-lands in the Mexican jungle, where he discovers a Mayan civilization accessible only through passages Underground; the Mayans, though totally out of touch with the outside world, have developed science and Technology to ...
Quatermass II
1. UK tv serial (1955). BBC TV. Produced and directed by Rudolph Cartier. Written Nigel Kneale. Cast includes Monica Grey, Hugh Griffith, John Robinson and John Stone. Six 35-minute episodes. Black and white. / The sudden death of Reginald Tate, who played the lead in The Quatermass Experiment (1953), may account for some of the visible discomfort exuded by John Robinson, who replaced ...
Gatiss, Mark
(1966- ) UK actor and author, best known in his sometime capacity as a member of The League of Gentlemen, a comedy team on BBC radio and television since 1995, acting in and co-authoring a spin-off film, The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse (2005). Although not strictly science-fictional, The League of Gentlemen's work – mainly focusing on the fictional Northern English town of Royston Vasey – makes frequent reference to film and ...
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 ...