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Saturday 18 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.
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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 ...
McGrew, Chandler
(1952-2024) US author of The Darkening (2004), whose Post-Holocaust setting, in which the sun suddenly dims and humanity goes weirdly absentee, mixes horror and sf (see Equipoise). Crossroads (2012) similarly carries its protagonist from a haunted America to another planet, inexplicably. [JC]
Old Dark House, The
US letter-size saddle-stapled Cinema Fanzine printed on newsprint. Publisher and editor: George LaVoo. Two numbered issues, 1976 and 1977. / This short-lived Monster Movies magazine showed potential and is of some interest despite its swift failure. The second issue carried a lengthy cover story on The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). ...
Chubbchubbs, The
US short animated film (2002). Sony Pictures Imageworks. Directed by Eric Armstrong. Written by Jeff Wolverton. Voice cast includes Brad Simonsen and Jeff Wolverton. 6 Minutes. Colour. / Fired and kicked out of the Alien karaoke bar where he worked as the janitor, Meeper (Simonsen) is warned by another alien that "the Chubbchubbs are coming" – and, indeed, Monsters can be seen approaching. The bar clientele flee; Meeper ...
Moody, H A
(? -? ) US author of an unusually intense Lost Race tale, The City Without a Name (1898), in which a white explorer, disguising himself as an Indian, discovers an Incan City whose king is in fact a woman in disguise. The land is surrounded by Monsters. They fall in love, marry, have a son, she is killed, her husband escapes. Twenty years later the son must ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...