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Monday 9 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 ...
Saxton, Josephine
(1935-2023) UK author who began publishing sf with "The Wall" in Science Fantasy #78 for November 1965, and whose first three novels – The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith (1969), Vector for Seven: The Weltanschaung of Mrs Amelia Mortimer and Friends [sic] (1970) and Group Feast (1971) – established her very rapidly as an inventive creator of sf Fabulations. ...
Winchester, Simon
(1944- ) UK journalist and author, for many years resident in the USA, a citizen of that country from 2011, active as a journalist from the 1960s. He is the author of several nonfiction studies of world politics, many of which edge into Futures Studies territory, including Pacific: The Ocean of the Future (2015), which takes a sharply negative view of Japanese industries. He is of specific sf interest for the ...
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
(1804-1864) US author, father of Julian Hawthorne, whose work in the literatures of the fantastic – a surprisingly high proportion of his oeuvre – concentrates supernatural fiction, much of this material being rationalized, however, in sf terms. One of the formative figures in US literature, Hawthorne was intrigued throughout his writing career by themes that would become common to sf. His extensive notebooks outline dozens of projected sf works ...
Clinton, George
(?1940- ) US funk musician, famous for his two connected groups, Parliament and Funkadelic. Many of the musicians from these collectives played on albums released under Clinton's name as solo albums. Computer Games (1982) has been especially heavily sampled by subsequent hip-hop and funk acts (the track "Atomic Dog" in particular); and the title track of You Shouldn't-Nuf Bit Fish ...
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 ...