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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 ...
Blomkamp, Neill
(1979- ) South African-born Canadian filmmaker, who was making precocious computer-animated films in his teens in Johannesburg (in which capacity he worked with a young television producer named Sharlto Copley) before emigrating to Vancouver with his family at 17; he attended Vancouver Film School and made a series of impressive early sf short films while working for Canadian visual-effects and advertising companies. Of particular note were Tetra Vaal ...
Finkelstein, Millie
(? -? ) Australian author in whose anti-Feminist Dystopia, The Newest Woman: The Destined Monarch of the World (1895), the Near Future emancipation of women leads inevitably to social upheavals by 1950; Gender reversals, which are here condemned, include the presence of Kate Keely, who is based on Ned Kelly (circa ...
Monroe, Keith
(1915-2003) US author best known for juvenile sf (and also much nonfiction) aimed at Boy Scouts. In the Time Machine series (1959-1989) – comprising 16 stories as by Donald Keith in collaboration with his father Donald Monroe (1888-1972) and seven by Monroe alone – an abandoned Time Machine enables adventures for the Scout patrol that finds it. As lifelong Scout leaders, the Monroes brought verisimilitude to their Scouting milieu. The ...
Meyer, J A
(? - ) Author of a few solo short stories beginning with "Guess Again" (May 1951 Astounding), and two collaborations with Alan E Nourse: the short "The Sign of the Tiger" (May 1958 Amazing) which was expanded as the sf novel The Invaders Are Coming! (May 1958 Amazing as "The Sign of the Tiger"; 1959; vt ...
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 ...