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Wednesday 22 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 20 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 ...
Nichol, Nyah
(circa 2004- ) Canadian author whose Young Adult Tempus Trilogy sequence beginning with Broken Shards of Time (2020) follows the trajectory, via Time Travel, of its bereaved young protagonist, who finds in the future that she must confront an inimical version of herself, and come to maturity through this encounter. She is helped by her companions to ...
Nebula Science Fiction
UK large-Digest-size magazine. 41 issues Autumn 1952-August 1959, published by Crownpoint Publications, Glasgow, Autumn 1952-April 1955, and by Peter Hamilton September 1955-August 1959; edited by Peter Hamilton. Issues were numbered consecutively after Vols 1 and 2 of four nos each; what should have been Vol 3 #1 was actually marked #9. Publication was quite irregular except for July 1957-February 1959, which was monthly apart from the omission of November and ...
de Marcken, Anne
(? - ) US photographer and author, active from around 1995, who is of some sf interest for her first novel, It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over (2024), which gives Equipoisal jostle to what may read as a straightforward Afterlife fantasy [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] by treating the protagonist's quest westwards as a ...
Pynchon, Thomas
(1937- ) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna" in Epoch Magazine for Spring 1959; all of his works are Fabulations in that most of them resemble sf under some interpretations (see also Fantastika), and Against the Day (2006) is undoubtedly sf. Though the Paranoia-wracked worlds his protagonists inhabit may ...
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 ...