SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 23 September 2023
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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 18 September 2023
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Architectural Metaphor
US space-rock band whose pretentious name well suits the ramblingly overweening sf stylings of their albums. On Studio Galacti (1994) and Creature of the Velvet Void (1997) swirling synthesizers and elaborately played guitars do little to enliven various pulpish Genre SF Clichés. [AR] see also: SF Music. / links / ...
McCollum, Michael A
(1946- ) US control-systems engineer (specializing in aerospace propulsion) and author, who began publishing sf with "Duty, Honor, Planet" for Analog, April 1979. His first novel, A Greater Infinity (fixup 1982), established the pattern he would follow through the 1980s: a complex Space-Opera adventure plot – assembling the variously published Greater Infinity stories beginning with ...
Ramón y Cajal, Santiago
(1852-1934) Spanish neuroscientist, artist and author; in his research into the structure of the micron, he established that the relationship between nerve cells was not continuous but contiguous, which has done something to save modern neurological science from excessively holistic presumptions; the Nobel Prize in medicine which he won in 1906 was primarily for this work. As a medical artist he was very well known; many of his drawings of the micro-architecture ...
Converse, Frank H
(1843-1889) US author for American Boys' Papers whose main work of sf interest Van: or, In Search of an Unknown Race (1 October-31 December 1887 The Golden Argosy; 1891; vt In Search of an Unknown Race 1901), a Lost Race tale featuring an Incan civilization in the Andes. Happy-Go-Lucky Jack (1901) is a lost race tale for children. [JC]
Smith, James V, Jr
(? - ) US author of horror novels with background Horror in SF hints of explanatory structures. The Beast sequence beginning with Beastmaker (1988) features a Monster created by (it may be) a Mad Scientist, or erroneously. The Lurker (1988) features a similar creatures, as does Almost Human (1990), which is set ...
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, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its listing of Pseudonyms. ...