SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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.
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 ...
Sobchack, Vivian
(1940- ) US author of academic film criticism, notably The Limits of Infinity: The American Science Fiction Film 1950-1975 (1980), expanded as Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film (1987), retaining the unaltered text of the earlier book but adding a long final chapter, "Postfuturism", which gives a reading of sf Cinema developed from the critical theories of Fredric ...
Central America
This entry deals with sf in the Latin American countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. / In 2003, the sf novel Primum (2003) by the Panamanian Ramón Varela Morales (? - ) won the prestigious Central American literary award named for Rogelio Sinán. Until then, the genre had not received critical attention, although the origins of Central American sf go ...
Barb Wire
Film (1996). Polygram Film Entertainment. Directed by David Hogan. Written by Chuck Pfarrer and Ilene Chaiken, from a story by Chaiken; based on the Comics character created by Chris Warren for Dark Horse Comics. Cast includes Amir Aboulela, Pamela Anderson, Xander Berkeley, Temuera Morrison, Steve Railsback and Victoria Rowell. 98 minutes. Colour. / 2017: a Dystopian Near Future America with ...
Arrested Development
Term used in this encyclopedia for the not uncommon scenario whereby humanity's perceived failure to realize its potential – assumed by John W Campbell Jr and others to be boundless – results from externally imposed shackles whose recognition can amply justify Paranoia. Removal of these constraints is likely to trigger a more or less traumatic Conceptual Breakthrough. ...
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 ...