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Tuesday 21 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 ...
Moon [film]
Film (2009). Liberty Films UK in association with Xingu Films and Limelight/Lunar Industries. Directed by Duncan Jones. Written by Nathan Parker; story by Jones. Cast includes Dominique McElligott, Sam Rockwell, Kaya Scodelario and Kevin Spacey (voice). 97 minutes. Colour. / In the Near Future, a new Power Source – fusion fuelled by lunar helium-3 – has solved Earth's ...
Schmidt, Dan
(? - ) US author who has written a number of titles presumably on licence to, and as by Don Pendleton in the nonfantastic Executioners Shared World sequence. For the Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan sequence, which features the same protagonist, he wrote Dark Truth (2002), which has some fantastic content. Schmidt has also written horror in his own name. [JC]
Rocketeer, The
Film (1991; vt The Adventures of the Rocketeer). Walt Disney (see The Walt Disney Company). Directed by Joe Johnston. Written by Danny Bilson, Paul DeMeo. Cast includes Alan Arkin, Bill Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Timothy Dalton and Paul Sorvino. 108 minutes. Colour. Based on The Rocketeer (1982-1995), a Comic created by Dave Stevens (1955-2008). / This enjoyable big-budget ...
Dimensions
We perceive three spatial dimensions, but theoretical Mathematics is easily capable of dealing with many more. Conventional graphical analysis frequently represents Time as a dimension, encouraging consideration of it as the "fourth dimension". The possible existence of Parallel Worlds displaced from ours along a fourth spatial dimension (in the same way that a series of two-dimensional universes might ...
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 ...