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Wednesday 15 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 ...
Westall, Robert
(1929-1993) UK art teacher (1960-1985), antique shop proprietor and author whose work, until near the end of his life, was usually for the Young Adult market or for younger children; from the beginning of his career, he was clearly at the forefront of those authors who had begun to respond to their audience's need for more direct confrontation with issues that concerned them. His nonfantastic debut novel, The Machine-Gunners (1975), which formed the ...
Malachronism
See the historical note at the end of this entry. / Without attempting a comprehensive Definition of SF, one may safely say that most sf stories and novels present an imaginary record of the human condition at some future time and, further, that the events recorded are usually of an epic dimension, either overtly or by implication. That is, that even when the protagonists are not of heroic stature they inhabit a landscape differing from our own ...
Thompson, Allyn
(? - ) US author of The Azriel Uprising (1982), set after a very brief World War Three has resulted in the Soviet occupation of America, leaving the land devastated; effective military resistance begins only after a decade, under a mysterious leader known only as Juanita. [JC]
Cronin, Michael
(1942- ) UK actor, screenwriter, and author; he should not be confused with Michael Cronin, a pseudonym of Brendan Leo Cronin (1907-1987). Cronin's Young Adult sequence, Against the Day – comprising Against the Day (1998), Through the Night (2003) and In the Morning (2005) – is set in a 1940s Britain governed by the Nazis (see Hitler Wins), and ...
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 ...