SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
Brambles, Lindsay Francis
(1959- ) Canadian author whose Alternate History tale, the Young Adult Becoming Darkness (2015), takes off from a Hitler Wins perspective: the Pandemic virus he has been responsible for releasing decimates the human race, leaving a few hundred million Vampires to continue ...
Grateful Dead
US rock band, formed in 1965 in San Francisco. With a core group of enduring musicians, augmented by a series of keyboard players, the band was long led by Jerome "Jerry" Garcia (1942-1995) as lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter, though rhythm guitarist Robert "Bob" Weir (1947- ) later emerged as a co-leader of sorts, composing many songs and singing about half of the tracks at their concerts. After Garcia's death, other band members have continued to play together ...
Things to Come
Film (1936). London Films. Directed by William Cameron Menzies. Written by Lajos Biro, H G Wells, based on Wells's The Shape of Things to Come (1933). Cast includes Maurice Braddell, Edward Chapman, Cedric Hardwicke, Raymond Massey, Ralph Richardson, Margaretta Scott and Ann Todd. 130 minutes, cut to 113 minutes. Black and white. / This Alexander Korda production was the most expensive and ambitious sf film of the 1930s – and, despite ...
Kingston, W H G
(1814-1880) UK author, almost solely for boys from 1850, more than 100 of his novels being juveniles, many of which expose his evangelical convictions; of these two are sf interest: Mark Seaworth: A Tale of the Indian Ocean (1852), a Lost Race tale; and At the South Pole: Or, the Adventures of Richard Pengelley, Mariner (1870), where the climate is unexpected. From 1853 until his death he was married to Agnes Kinloch ...
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 ...