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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.
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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 ...
Coates, Robert M
(1897-1973) US author, primarily associated throughout his career with The New Yorker, for which he worked, and to which he contributed many stories. He is mainly of interest to the sf field for his first novel, The Eater of Darkness (1926; rev 1929), which, written before he had fully assimilated the sometimes restrictive urbanity of The New Yorker style, quite brilliantly applies a wide arsenal of literary devices and references, some of the more nihilistic ...
End of the World
Together with Utopias and cautionary tales, apocalyptic visions form one of the three principal traditions of pre-twentieth-century futuristic fantasy. Visions inspired by the religious imagination go back into antiquity (see Mythology; Religion), and the artist John Martin depicted vast biblical catastrophes with particular relish from the 1820s to the 1850s; but the ...
Rogers, Wayne
Pseudonym of US journalist and editor Archibald Bittner (1897-1966), who edited The Argosy from 9 June 1928 to 1931 under his own name; as Rogers (at some point he probably changed his name legally to Wayne Rogers) he was active in the Pulp magazines from 1932, beginning with "Yellow Treasure" for Thrilling Adventures in May 1932; he also wrote some stories as by Conrad Kimball. He may now be best known for his novel-length ...
Valley of the Zombies
US film (1946). Republic Pictures. Directed by Philip Ford. Written by Royal K Cole, Sherman L Lowe, Dorrell McGowan and Stuart E McGowan. Cast includes Adrian Booth, Earle Hodgins, Ian Keith, Robert Livingston and Charles Trowbridge. 56 minutes. Black and white. / After a mysterious caped figure enters a hospital via the roof and a mislead whereby we expect a nurse to be his victim, we watch brain specialist Dr. Rufus Maynard (Trowbridge) inform his colleagues – who include Dr. Terry ...
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 ...