SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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 ...
Älgarnas Trädgård
["Garden of the Elks"] Swedish space-rock band, whose only release Framtiden är ett svävande skepp, förankrat i forntiden (1972) combines pseudo-medieval folk and futuristic psychedelic styles to surprisingly good effect. The title translates as "The Future is a Hovering Ship Anchored in the Past", and a time-clash science-fictional theme links the tracks. [AR] see also: SF Music. / links ...
Far Out Space Nuts
Juvenile tv series (1975-1976). Sid and Marty Krofft Enterprises for CBS-TV. Created by Sid and Marty Krofft (see The Krofft Brothers) with Joe Ruby and Ken Spears. Directors include Claudio Guzman, Wes Kenny and Walter C Miller. Writers include Chuck McCann, Earle Doud and Duane Poole. Cast includes Bob Denver, Patti Maloney and Chuck McCann. 15 25-minute episodes. Colour. / Two inept maintenance workers at a ...
Elliott, H Chandler
(1906-1978) Canadian-born physician, university teacher of medicine and author, in the US for many years; he began publishing work of genre interest with "Inanimate Objection" in Galaxy for February 1954. In his sf novel, Reprieve from Paradise (1955), Polynesians have survived an atomic World War Three, and forty centuries after their shocked discovery of the Post-Holocaust world, ...
Jack the Ripper
This notorious nineteenth-century UK serial killer and mutilator – usually of female prostitutes – operated in the Whitechapel region of London, committing five murders in 1888 and perhaps others before and after, to a possible total of eleven. Never identified, the Ripper became and still remains gaslight-era London's major Icon of fear. The related literature of analysis and speculation ("Ripperology") is immense; we record ...
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 ...