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.
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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 ...
Pinchin, Frank J
(1925-1990) UK research chemist and author. His first four sf novels, all as by Peter Dagmar, were not exceptional: Alien Skies (1962), Spykos 4: Strange Life-Forms on Unexplored Planets (1962; vt Spaceways 1973), Sands of Time (1963) – a fairly complex Time-Travel tale in which visitors from the future attempt to destroy a post-World War Three super- ...
Scientific Thrillers
Australian publication which may be regarded either as a Chapbook series or a Magazine: Digest format, monthly November 1948 to May 1952, mostly undated, initially published by Associated General Publications, Sydney, company name changed to Transport Publications from #3 (January 1949). 43 issues in all; page count varied from 32pp to 52pp. The uncredited editors were Alister ...
Strasser, Todd
(1950- ) US author, highly prolific in children's and Young Adult fiction, with more than 140 such titles published. His first sf novel, The Mall from Outer Space (1987), was a juvenile in which shopping malls are taken over by Aliens. His remaining sf consists mainly of film Ties, where his novelizations include Honey, I Blew up the Kid (1992), ...
Smith, Howard S
(? - ) Canadian author whose sf novel, Howard S Smith's I, Robot (2008), while its author explicitly disavows any connection with any other story or film with the familiar title, does clearly depend on most of them in the Technothriller story of a twenty-first century Robot detective bound by the three ...
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 ...