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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.
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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 ...
Kyle, Kristen
Pseudonym of US author Christine K Benson (? - ); of her several romance fictions, Nighthawk (1997), a dynasty romance set at the heart of a Galactic Empire, is sf. A love/hate triangle is involved. [JC]
Guttenberg, Elyse
(1952- ) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Selena's Song" in Spaceships and Spells: A Collection of New Fantasy and Science-Fiction Stories (anth 1987) edited by Martin H Greenberg, Charles G Waugh and Jane Yolen. The hints of Dream Hacking in her first novel, Sunder, Eclipse & Seed ...
Wilber, Rick
Working name of US academic and author Richard Arnold Wilber (1948- ), who began to publish work of genre interest with "Horatio Hornblower and the Songs of Innocence" in Chrysalis 6 (anth 1980) edited by Roy Torgeson, and many of whose short stories have been assembled as Where Garagiola Waits and Other Baseball Stories (coll 1999), To Leuchars (coll 2001) and ...
Witkiewicz, Stanislaw Ignacy
(1885-1939) Polish painter, playwright and author, who also signed himself Witkacy, a combination of his last and middle names; he committed Suicide just after the Nazi invasion of his country when he learned that Soviet armies had attacked from the east, the direction in which he was fleeing. Much of his work, some eerily prophetic, deals darkly and humorously with the theme of a conservative world suddenly subjected to change, the clash of cultures, future ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...