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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 ...
Moore, Phyllis S
(? - ) Canadian author, whose sf tale, Williwaw! (1978), about Near Future separatist revolt in Newfoundland, is surprisingly violent. [JC]
von Braun, Wernher
(1912-1977) German-born engineer and rocket scientist who notoriously led the Peenemünde team that developed Rocket technology for Nazi Germany before and during World War Two, leading to the V-2 or Vergeltungswaffe 2 ["Vengeance Weapon 2"] rocket-powered missile used against London and other Allied targets 1944-1945. As a Colonel in the Nazi SS, he has been accused of ...
Doubleday
US general publisher which in the 1950s was one of the first US hardcover houses to institute an sf line, an early title being Pebble in the Sky (1950), which was Isaac Asimov's first novel. (The Doubleday imprint, Doubleday and Company, Inc, should not be confused with that of their associated company, Nelson Doubleday, Inc, publishers of the US Science Fiction Book Club.) Once the Doubleday line was ...
Fearing, Kenneth
(1902-1961) US poet and author, who supported himself in early years in part by writing softcore pornography as by Kirk Wolff, and whose early renown as a poet faded perceptibly even before his death; he is now known mainly for mysteries like The Big Clock (1946), a tale whose atmosphere adumbrates the film-noir tonality of later US fantasy. Fearing's only sf novel proper is Clark Gifford's Body (1942), which gravely and literately portrays a ...
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 ...