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Monday 16 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 ...
Man They Could Not Hang, The
Film (1939). Columbia. Directed by Nick Grinde. Written by Karl Brown, based on a story by Leslie T White and George W Sayre. Cast includes Lorna Gray, Boris Karloff, Roger Pryor and Robert Wilcox. 72 minutes. Black and white. / A kindly Scientist (Karloff) invents a mechanical heart, and one of his students volunteers to undergo clinical death to test it; a police raid at the critical ...
Lynch, Chris
(1962- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Bearing Paul" in Night Terrors: Stories of Shadow and Substance (anth 1996) edited by Lois Duncan; his Young Adult Cyberia sequence beginning with Cyberia (2008) is set in a Near Future "wired" world; the young protagonist, after discovering that his friends – animals with implanted microchips that ...
Morgan, John Minter
(1782-1854) UK educationist and author; as an influential advocate for the creation of a socialist, communitarian Utopia in England, he was heavily influenced by Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516). The Revolt of the Bees (1826) anonymous is written with didactic intent, and its bringing together of what would soon be seen as incompatible modes, have ensured its abiding obscurity. A group (or hive) of ...
Schmidt, Dan
(? - ) US author who has written a number of titles presumably on licence to, and as by Don Pendleton in the nonfantastic Executioners Shared World sequence. For the Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan sequence, which features the same protagonist, he wrote Dark Truth (2002), which has some fantastic content. Schmidt has also written horror in his own name. [JC]
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 ...