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Friday 13 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 ...
Astrogation
Literally, guidance by the stars. In sf Terminology this is the space equivalent of navigation, and the astrogator is conventionally one of the most important officers on a Spaceship. After a jump through Hyperspace, perhaps, it is necessary – although less frequently now than in the Golden Age of SF – for the astrogator to identify several stars, ...
Thompson, Edward Herbert
(1857-1935) US archaeologist and author, mostly resident in the Yucatan, Mexico, from 1885; he gained some notoriety for an early essay, "Atlantis Not a Myth" (1879 Popular Science Monthly), basing his argument for the historical reality of Atlantis on his conviction that ancient Maya monuments, following a diffusionist model, must have had some such precedent. His many years studying Maya civilization both changed his mind and provided much evidence to the ...
O'Donnell, Peter
(1920-2010) UK Comics writer and author who entered the comics field in 1936, his work being usually nonfantastic, although he wrote a number of notable scripts from 1953 to 1966 for the Science Fantasy strip Garth. He is of particular sf interest for Modesty Blaise, a newspaper strip which ran in the London Evening Standard from 13 May 1963 until 11 April 2001, when he retired; this was ...
Greenwood, Gary
(? - ) UK small-press author in whose first novel The Dreaming Pool (1998) a South Wales underachiever is threatened by ghosts, a secret society and an H P Lovecraft-style Thing; an early hint at extra-terrestrial incomers (see Aliens) leaves the true nature of events around the titular pool suitably unresolved. Greenwood's distinctive mix of sf, ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...