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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 ...
Levinson, Leonard
(1935- ) US author of sf novels under other names: contributions to the Butler series of Sex-charged Technothrillers beginning with Killer Satellites (1980) under the House Name Philip Kirk; and The Camp (1977) as by Jonathan Trask. [JC]
Architectural Metaphor
US space-rock band, formed in the Boston area in Summer 1984, whose pretentious name well suits the ramblingly overweening sf stylings of their albums. On Studio Galacti (1994) and Creature of the Velvet Void (1997) swirling synthesizers and elaborately played guitars do little to enliven various Pulpish Genre SF Clichés. [AR] see also: ...
Multiverse
Term originally coined outside sf as an alternative to "universe" that supposedly avoided any presupposition of a unique and ordered creation. Its best known early use was in an 1895 speech by US philosopher-psychologist William James (1842-1910), collected in his Will to Believe (coll 1897): "Visible nature is all plasticity and indifference, a moral multiverse, as one might call it, and not a moral universe." This was anticipated by the scientist and science writer William ...
Sidewise Award
These annual awards for Alternate History fiction were conceived in 1995 by Evelyn C Leeper, Robert B Schmunk and Steven H Silver, and have since been presented annually in two categories, Long Form for works of more than 60,000 words and Short Form for works (including poems) of less than 60,000 words. The awards' name is a homage to Murray Leinster's short ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...