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
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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 ...
Appel, John
(circa 1963- ) US specialist in information security issues, now primarily an author whose first novel, Assassin's Orbit (2021), set in a moderately complex Space Opera universe. The planet Ilera is close to choosing union with a larger confederation known as the Commonwealth. The Politics of such a move are subject to coercive schemes; the protagonist, a private investigator, becomes ...
Lory, Robert
(1936-2020) US public relations adviser and author, who began publishing sf with "Rundown" for Worlds of If (see If) in May 1963; his stories were assembled as A Harvest of Hoodwinks (coll 1970 dos). His sf novels, mostly light, fantasy-laced adventures, are unambitious but competent; they include Identity Seven (1974), which involves Identity Exchange in various realities, and ...
Tarzan
This potent twentieth-century myth, created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in Tarzan of the Apes (October 1912 All-Story; 1914), may seem only marginally sf on the strength of the detail that Tarzan – who is both Lord Greystoke, scion of English aristocracy, and Pastoral lord of the African jungle – was raised by great apes (see ...
Fantastic Worlds
1. US Amateur Magazine which saw eight issues from Summer 1952 to Fall 1955, published and edited by Edward W Ludwig for the first two issues and then taken over by Sam Sackett. It ran mostly fan-written articles but included some short fiction and other essays of interest such as "The Arkham House Story" (Summer 1952) by August Derleth, "Lovers and Otherwise" (Spring 1953) by ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...