SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 17 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 ...
Conapt
In sf Terminology, an apartment in a high-rise building. Conapts often feature what is effectively a complete life-support system, so that even when they are in a densely populated city their inhabitants are often seen to be isolated from other people. A conapt is often assumed to be in a city consisting of high-rise buildings, each one highly populated, but with the buildings themselves not necessarily crowded together, and sometimes separated by parkland. ...
Blow, Ernest J
(? - ) South African author of Appointment in Space (1963), an undemanding tale whose protagonists take a Spaceship to Mars, where they have some adventures. [JC]
Casteret, Norbert
(1897-1987) French speleologist and author, in active service during World War One; he had already begun caving in 1912 and discovered a number of important sites, including at least one containing prehistoric paintings; most of his writings are devoted to his profession. His sf novel, Mission centre terre (1964; trans Antonia Ridge and rev as Mission Underground 1968), sends explorers several miles ...
Komroff, Manuel
(1890-1974) US author of I, the Tiger (1933), a tale Equipoisal between fantasy and sf: the narration, from the point-of-view of a caged tiger, is fantasy; the Hollywood frame (see California), in which a "superfilm" is exorbitantly described, pushes some elements of Satire beyond the mundane. [JC]
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 ...