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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 ...
Meyers, Richard S
(1953- ) US author who publishes also as Wade Barker. His sf novels are of relatively little interest, though the Doomstar sequence – Doom Star (1978; rev vt Doomstar 1985) and Doom Star Number Two (1979; rev vt Return to Doomstar 1985) – are moderately entertaining Space Operas. The Book of the Undead is horror [see Checklist]. ...
Wooldridge, C W
(1847-1908) UK physician and author, in USA from childhood. In his Near Future Utopia, Perfecting the Earth: A Piece of Possible History (1902), a charismatic figure resembling Theodore Roosevelt begins to transform America by setting the army – idle in 1913 because there are no wars about to happen – to the task of building the West on utopian lines. Their climactic achievement is a utopian ...
Interactive Fiction
Term apparently coined by Robert Lafore to describe the text Adventures he wrote for Adventure International (AI), among them the crime game Local Call For Death (1979 AI, TRS80). The phrase came into general use when it was employed by the development house Infocom to promote such works as A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985) by emphasizing their connections with literature as opposed to ...
Engelhardt, Frederick
(? - ) Author whose first published story was the serialized novella "General Swamp, C.I.C." (August-September 1939 Astounding), a routine adventure in which human colonies on Venus (see Colonization of Other Worlds) rebel against Earth. Ten further stories, not all sf, appeared in various Pulp magazines including The ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...