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Monday 20 April 2026
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 14 April 2026
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Watson, Ian
(1943-2026) UK teacher and author who lectured in English in Tanzania (1965-1967) and Tokyo (1967-1970) before beginning to publish sf with "Roof Garden Under Saturn" for New Worlds in 1969; he then taught Future Studies for six years at Birmingham Polytechnic, taking there one of the first academic courses in sf in the UK; he became a full-time writer in 1976, publishing around 200 short stories since 1969 at a gradually increasing tempo and with visibly ...
Gretta, J Clemens
Working name of US illustrator Joseph Clemens Gretter (1904-1988); he began signing his work simply as "Gretta" in the early 1930s. He illustrated many volumes for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, mostly for nonfantastic series like The Hardy Boys and the X Bar X Boys, though occasionally he did sf covers, like that for Castaways of the Stratosphere; Or, Hunting the Vanished Balloonists (1935) as by Franklin W ...
Little Witch Academia
Japanese animated tv series (2017). Trigger. Created and Directed by Yoh Yoshinari. Written by Michiru Shimada. Voice cast includes Megumi Han, Noriko Hidaka, Yōko Hikasa, Shōzō Iizuka, Rie Murakawa, Michiyo Murase, Fumiko Orikasa and Junko Takeuchi. 25 24-minute episodes. Colour. / This Television series was preceded by two short films: Little Witch Academia (2013) and ...
Centauri Express, The
US audio magazine (see Audiozine) which ran for five releases, undated other than by year, between September 1987 and April 1990. It never kept to its planned quarterly schedule. Each release consisted of a single audiocassette lasting ninety minutes. On each side was a fully dramatized adaptation of a story performed by the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company of Atlanta, Georgia under the overall direction of Thomas E Fuller (1948-2002), who had first proposed the ...
Otaku Elf
Japanese animated tv series (2023). Original title Edomae Elf. C2C. Directed by Takebumi Anzai. Written by Shōgo Yasukawa, based on the Manga by Akihiko Higuchi. Voice cast includes Ami Koshimizu and Yuka Ozaki. Twelve 24-minute episodes. Colour. / 400 years ago, Elda (Koshimizu), an Immortal elf from another Dimension, took over the role of goddess ( ...
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 ...