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Thursday 16 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 ...
Cher, Marie
Working name of author Marie Scherr (1865-? ), whose nationality has not been securely identified; she may have been French. Her maiden name is recorded as being Schvarzberg, and she published at least one book in France in the late nineteenth century. Her later works all seem to have been written in English. The Immortal Gymnasts (1915) is a Fantasy of Manners setting figures from the Commedia dell'Arte into the contemporary world [for Commedia dell'Arte and ...
Jackson, Steve
(1951- ) UK Game designer, author and entrepreneur. With Ian Livingstone, Jackson (who should not be confused with the US Steve Jackson) founded Games Workshop and created the Fighting Fantasy series of Gamebooks, the two most important parts of the UK games industry before ...
Monster, The
US silent film (1925). Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. Directed by Roland West. Written by Willard Mack, Albert G Kenyon and Roland West, based on the stage play The Monster (performed 1922) by Crane Wilbur. Cast includes Johnny Arthur, George Austin, Lon Chaney, Hallam Cooley, Walter James, Gertrude Olmstead and William H Turner. 86 minutes. Black and white. / One evening, as wealthy farmer John Bowman ...
Saunders, Jake
(1947- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "The Bidderfrost Dragon" in Coven for March 1970, but as a writer has been one of the less active members of a Texas grouping which included Howard Waldrop, his collaborator on the Near Future The Texas-Israeli War: 1999 (July-August 1973 Galaxy as "A Voice and Bitter Weeping"; much exp ...
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 ...