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Tuesday 21 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 ...
System Shock
Videogame (1994). Looking Glass Studios (LG). Designed by Doug Church. Platforms: DOS (1994); Mac (1995). / System Shock is an early First Person Shooter much influenced by Computer Role Playing Games. It is set in a Cyberpunk world, with gameplay which combines puzzle solution, exploration and combat. ...
Johnson, Charles
Almost certainly the joint pseudonym of Gena Metcalf (? - ) and Tom Metcalf (? - ), most of whose work has been nonfiction for Young Adult readers. Of sf interest is Pieces of Eight (1989), whose young protagonists travel by Timeslip to the world of the pirate Blackbeard, where they have adventures; this title was announced as beginning the ...
Worlds of Tomorrow
US Digest-size magazine, 26 issues in two series, April 1963 to May 1967 and [Summer] 1970 to Spring 1971. First issue published by Barmaray Co, New York and then by Galaxy Publishing Co. as a bimonthly companion to Galaxy Science Fiction and If, until May 1967, 23 issues, edited by Frederik Pohl. The bimonthly schedule slipped when August 1964 was followed by November 1964, and it ...
Green, Joseph
(1931-2026) US author of sf and technical journalism who also worked for NASA, and who began publishing sf with "The Engineer" in New Worlds for February 1962. An Affair with Genius (coll 1969) assembles some of his better early work. Since 1989 he also published short fiction in Analog, F&SF and other magazines as by Francis Marion Soty. Although many of his 70-plus stories (not all sf) have ...
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 ...