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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 ...
Kirstein, Rosemary
(1953- ) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Act Naturally" in Asimov's Science Fiction for July 1982. Her first novel was The Steerswoman (1989), opening the Steerswoman sequence which initially has a fantasy-quest flavour – with swords and other items of medieval Technology, wizards and even so-called demons, dragons and goblins – but proves to be set on ...
Albania
There has been some sf in Albanian since the late 1960s, but not until 1978 was the first sf book published there. By 1991 there had been about a dozen, of which five were by Thanas Qerama, a prolific writer and also an editor of juvenile science magazines; examples are Roboti i pabindur ["Disobedient Robot"] (coll 1981), Një javë në vitin 2044 ["One Week in the Year 2044"] (1982) and Misteri i tempullit të lashtë ["Mystery of the Old ...
George, S C
(1898-1985) UK soldier and author, whose books were sometimes signed as by Flight-Lieut or Group Capt S C George; of sf interest is The Blue Ray (1938), in which a Mad Scientist's Invention of the titular weapon turns humans into obedient, deadly slaves. [JC]
Cobb, Weldon J
(1849-1922) US businessman and author who specialized in dime novels (see Dime-Novel SF), working mainly in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, though he did collaborate later with Edward Stratemeyer for the Stratemeyer Syndicate on some non-fantastic tales, and the borderline The Boys of the Wireless (1912) as by Frank V Webster (see ...
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 ...