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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.
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 ...
Without Warning [2]
Made-for-tv film (1994). The Wolper Organisation/Mountain View Productions/Warner Brothers Television for CBS-TV. Produced by Robert Iscove and Nancy Platt Jacoby. Directed by Iscove. Written by Peter Lance, based on an original story by Lance, Waylon Green, and Jeremy Thorn. Cast includes Loni Anderson (uncredited), Arthur C Clarke, Jane Kaczmarek, Sander Vanocur and Bree Walker (credited as Bree Walker-Lampley). 100 minutes. Colour. / This ...
Retro Hugo
Retrospective Hugo awards may be voted under certain circumstances to fill the perceived gap left by a past World SF Convention at which no Hugos were presented. Besides the voting of the usual Hugos for the previous year's sf, a Worldcon committee may optionally allow its members to choose Retro Hugos which might have been but were not presented at the Worldcon of 50, 75 or 100 years previously ...
Moran, Richard
(1942-2009) US author whose Near Future Disaster thrillers – beginning with Cold Sea Rising (1986), in which volcanic action melts the Ross Ice Shelf in the Antarctic – usually import Technothriller elements into their storylines, giving room for heroic action which turns the tables. Novels of this sort include Dallas Down (1988) and the Meade sequence ...
Julius
Pseudonym of the unidentified author (? -? ), presumably UK, of the spoof lectures assembled as The Sorrows of Jupiter (coll 1904), in which fantasy – the old age of the Greek gods – is intermixed with light doses of sf: Mercury, according to George Locke, has electrified sandals; and at least one attendant civilization has descended from smart apes. [JC]
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 ...