SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 14 May 2025
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 12 May 2025
Sponsor of the day: Conversation 2023
Fabian, Stephen E
(1930-2025) American artist, sometimes credited as Steve Fabian or simply Fabian. The self-trained Fabian first worked as an electronic engineer, but he began contributing art to Fanzines in the late 1960s and became a full-time professional artist in 1973. He did a number of covers and interior art for SF Magazines, mostly Amazing, Fantastic, and ...
Bradford, K Tempest
Main pseudonym of unidentified teacher, blogger and author (1978- ), who also writes as by Kim Bradford and Finley T Larkin. As Larkin, she began to publish work of genre interest with "Elf Aware" in The Cafe Irreal for August 2002, most of her subsequent fiction being fantasy. In 2020 she shared a special Locus Award with Nisi Shawl (whom see) and Cynthia Ward for the online writing classes and workshops still continuing as ...
Riley, Terry
(1935- ) US composer, one of the most influential and enduring figures associated with minimalist music from the 1960s onwards, as evidenced by much-recorded pieces such as In C (1963), though much of his subsequent work strays far from minimalist orthodoxy. He was also a pioneer of electronic composition, most famously A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969). Sun Rings (original multimedia presentation 2002, first full recording ...
Barr, Martin W
(1860-1938) US medical doctor and author; in the former capacity, as superintendent from 1893 to an unknown date of the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-Minded Children at Elwyn, he was a strong advocate of the sterilization of "mental defectives" in his care whom he deemed incurable. Of sf interest is his only novel, The King of Thomond: A Story of Yesterday (1907), in the frame story of which the superintendent of a Pennsylvania insane asylum presents the first-person ...
Giant Spider Invasion, The
Film (1975). Group 75/Transcentury. Directed by Bill Rebane. Written by Robert Easton, Richard L Huff. Cast includes Steve Brodie, Alan Hale, Barbara Hale and Leslie Parrish. 76 minutes. Colour. / Noted by one critic, Michael Weldon, as the Monster Movie with the worst special effects since The Giant Claw (1957), this is fondly remembered as the one where the giant spider was built out of a modified ...
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 ...