SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 15 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 ...
Sellings, Arthur
Pseudonym of UK bookseller and author Arthur Gordon Ley (1921-1968), who began publishing sf stories with "The Haunting" for Authentic Science Fiction in October 1953; the best of his output of about thirty tales was assembled in Time Transfer (coll 1956; with five stories cut 1966) and The Long Eureka (coll 1968). In the 1960s his productivity increased; he died (suddenly, of a heart attack) just as he was ...
Biancotti, Deborah
(1971- ) Australian author who began publishing work of genre interest with "The First and Final Game" in Altair for August 2000, which appeared with other ambitious, complexly couched early work in A Book of Endings (coll 2009). The Bad Power (coll of linked stories 2011), presents a linked cast of Australians, their lives otherwise unconnected, who must learn to deal with their ...
Star Wars: Galaxies
Videogame (2003). Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). Designed by Raph Koster (forename is a short form of Raphael, not Ralph mistyped). Platforms: Win. / While the milieu of Star Wars: Galaxies was licenced from the eponymous film series (specifically, it was set in a frozen historical moment between Star Wars (1977) [1977] and ...
Hadfield, Chris
(1959- ) Canadian soldier, astronaut, broadcaster and author, pilot in the Canadian air force for twenty-five years from 1977, during which time he crewed in joint Canadian-American space shuttle flights. After The Darkest Dark (2016 chap), a tale of space travel for younger children, he is of sf interest for The Apollo Murders (2021), an Alternate History ...
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 ...