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Wednesday 22 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 20 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 ...
Sirius
1. Magazine. See Yugoslavia. / 2. Australian critical Semiprozine, subtitled "The Australian Magazine for readers of science fiction, fantasy and the macabre". Announced as quarterly but slightly irregular, test issue #0 September 1992, #1 March 1993, seven full issues to March 1995, A4 format, saddle-stapled, edited by Garry Wyatt from Canberra, pub Gaslight Books Publications. Sirius contains critical ...
Invasion of Canada
Homo sapiens first arrived in what became the Americas 25,000 years ago, when hunter-gatherers first crossed the land bridge between Asia and Alaska. From that moment both North and South America, churned by Invasions and Wars, galore with civilizations vying to survive, have been increasingly defiled by human priorities. Before the invention of writing much of this intercourse passed without being laid down in scriptural form, which ...
Turner, E S
(1909-2006) UK journalist and nonfiction author who for more than fifty years contributed articles – most of them quirkily factual – to Punch magazine. His first book Boys Will Be Boys: The Story of Sweeney Todd, Deadwood Dick, Sexton Blake, Billy Bunter, Dick Barton, et al (1948; exp rev 1957; exp rev 1975) is a useful survey of Boys' Papers. Later editions briefly covered the 1950s UK horror- ...
BBC Radiophonic Workshop, The
Founded in 1958, this department of the BBC was tasked with providing both sound effects and original music for BBC radio and television programming. Desmond Briscoe (1925-2006) and Daphne Oram (1925-2003), who had previously composed original electronic music for radio works by Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) and Giles Cooper, were the founding recruits. They soon established the Workshop's reputation for innovative, striking music and all manner of sound effects. ...
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 ...