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 ...
Jackson, Geo Russell
(circa 1834-1892) Scottish-born journalist, songwriter and author, in the US from an early age; his Young Adult novel, Ambregris Island; Or, the New El Dorado (1882), flirts enticingly with the Lost Race tale – the eponymous Island contains huge quantities of ambergris and an unknown tribe – and boasts a sea serpent (see Monsters). [JC]
Sparkes, Ali
(1966- ) UK author of fiction, at first within what seemed to be an encompassing fantasy frame, addressed to younger readers crossing over into Young Adult expectations and focusing mostly on series. The first of these is the Shapeshifter sequence beginning with The Shapeshifter: Finding the Fox (2006), in which a cohort of Shapeshifter teenagers, the Children of Limitless Ability, ...
Voyage to the Deep
US Comic (1962-1963). 4 issues. Dell Publishing Co. Inc. Artists include John McDermott and Sam Glanzman. Script writers include Paul Newman. Each issue contains a 32-page story about the US submarine Proteus, usually book-ended by two one-page non-fiction pieces, often related to the subject of the main story. For instance, in #1 these concern the biblical flood (see Religion), the text informing us that the "upper waters" ...
Blot, Thomas
Pseudonym of US author William Simpson (1828-1910). In his sf novel The Man from Mars: His Morals, Politics and Religion (1891) the eponymous telepathic traveller tells of his Utopian world. Unfortunately – if his desire was to communicate widely – the human he contacts is a hermit. [JC]
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...