SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 11 July 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 7 July 2025
Sponsor of the day: Ansible Editions
Black, Frank Burne
(? -? ) Canadian author of The Chronicle of Kan-Uk the Kute [for subtitle see checklist below] (1918), a Satirical description of World War One, couched in quasi-Biblical cadences. The distortions in the spelling of names and places, and the explicit provenance given in the subtitle, make it clear that Kan-Uk has written down his tale at some point in the ...
Fighting Fantasy
Gamebook series (from 1982). Puffin, Wizard Books. Designed by Steve Jackson, Ian Livingstone. / The idea of single-player Role Playing Game scenarios was first used in a number of adventures for the early fantasy game Tunnels and Trolls (1975 Flying Buffalo [FB]) designed by Ken St Andre, beginning with Buffalo Castle (1976 ...
Rocket Comics
US Comic (1940). Hillman-Curl, Inc. Three issues. Artists include Jack Alderman, Jack Cole and Maurice Gutwirth. Each issue had 7 strips plus one or two short pieces (text story and/or nonfiction). / Each issue opens with a serial, "The Runaway Rocket" featuring Rocket Riley, Prince of the Planets, employed as the pilot of Professor Sterling's experimental interplanetary rocket ships. One day the professor announces he has "discovered how to explode the ...
Relapse
UK Fanzine edited by Peter Weston. Two issues 1983 as Prolapse, A4 duplicated; the more important incarnation is the second series, 2006-2013, A4 photocopied to #4, litho-printed from #5, typically 36-44pp. 21 issues 1983-2013. / The focus was on byways of the history of Fandom and Conventions, almost exclusively in the UK; many old photographs of fans and authors ...
Hickman, Stephen
(1949-2021) US artist working in the fields of both sf and fantasy, credited usually as Stephen Hickman, occasionally as Stephen F Hickman or Steve Hickman, and in a couple of early instances erroneously as Steven Hickman. He attended art school for two years at the Richmond Professional Institute (Virginia Commonwealth University) alongside such future luminaries as Michael W Kaluta, Phil Trumbo and Charles Vess. His ...
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 ...