SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
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 ...
Kemp, Earl Terry
(1955- ) US editor, sf researcher and historian, son of Earl Kemp. He is the author of The Anthem Series: A Guide to the Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Weird Specialty Publishers of the Golden Age (2013), art books including the Robert Bonfils collection The Cover Art of Robert Bonfils: from the archives of Greenleaf Classics (graph 2013), and two extensive bibliographic ...
Demolition Man
Film (1993). Silver Pictures/Warner Bros. Directed by Marco Brambilla. Written by Daniel Waters, Robert Reneau, Peter M Lenkov, based on a story by Lenkov and Reneau. Cast includes Sandra Bullock, Bob Gunton, Nigel Hawthorne, Denis Leary, Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone. 115 minutes. Colour. / In 1997 Los Angeles (see California), macho cop John Spartan (Stallone) – nicknamed "the demolition man" – is ...
Williamson, Robert H
(? -? ) UK author whose only known novel, The Sweetness of Revenge (1904) is an adventure with sf elements, including the Invention of an advanced Machine; any Near Future implications of the tale, which takes place mostly at sea, are only dubiously to be inferred. [JC]
Worlds of Fear
US Comic (1952-1953). 9 issues (numbered #2-#10). Fawcett Publications Inc. Artists include Bob McCarthy, Sheldon Moldoff and Bob Powell. Harry Harrison drew at least one story, whilst Otto Binder (as Eando Binder) wrote the text story for #5 (neither were sf). 36 pages: #2-#8 had three strips, #9 and #10 four: all had a short text story. #10 also had a one-page non-fiction piece recounting ...
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 ...