SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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
Sponsor of the day: The League of Fan Funds
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 ...
Colossus, the Forbin Project
Film (1969; vt The Forbin Project). Universal. Directed by Joseph Sargent. Written by James Bridges, based on Colossus (1966) by D F Jones. Cast includes Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Paul Frees (uncredited) Gordon Pinsent and William Schallert. 100 minutes. Colour. / A supercomputer, Colossus, is designed by Dr Charles Forbin (Braeden) to take control of the US defence network. After being activated and lauded by the President ...
Reichardt, Jasia
(1933- ) Polish-born journalist, editor, exhibition curator and author, in UK from 1942, having escaped from the Polish ghetto with the aid of a relative, Franciszka Themerson; Reichardt later edited much work for Gaberbocchus Press (see Stefan Themerson) and elsewhere. Of the several exhibitions she has mounted, Cybernetic Serendipity (London: ICA, 1968-1969) (see Cybernetics) was perhaps ...
Farrell, Jackson T
(1904-1978) US author of a Near Future sf adventure, The Flight of the Endeavor (1978), in which an anti-science faction attempts – unsuccessfully – to thwart the exploration of space. [JC]
Daimajū Gekitō: Hagane no Oni
Japanese Original Video Animation (OVA) (1987; vt Demon of Steel: Battle of the Great Demon Beasts; vt Steel Devil). AIC. Directed by Toshihiro Hirano. Written by Shō Aikawa. Voice cast includes Toshio Furukawa, Kazuhiko Inoue, Osamu Saka, Mayumi Shō and Sakiko Tamagawa. 60 minutes. Colour. / In 1999 a research station on the island of Sansara discovers a new type of quark ("the quark of Malhuder") (see ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...