SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 19 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 ...
Steve Miller Band, The
US rock group formed by Steve Miller (1947- ), whose first album Children of the Future (1968) strung a varied portfolio of blues and psychedelic songs along a vaguely future-oriented sf conceit. "Brave New World" (on Brave New World, 1969) is not a version of Aldous Huxley's novel, and indeed develops an unironized Utopian vision. "Space Cowboy" from the same album saw Miller ...
Hall, Sarah
(1974- ) UK author whose second novel, The Electric Michelangelo (2004), skirts Fantastika through the life story of a tattooist. Of direct sf interest is her third novel, The Carhullan Army (2007), which comprises a fragmented record of events, laid down long before its discovery (see Ruins and Futurity) by a young woman brought up in a ...
Taxandria
Belgian/French/German/Dutch live-action/animated film (1994). Iblis Films, Bibo Films, Les Productions Dussart. Directed by Raoul Servais. Written by Frank Daniel, Raoul Servais and Alain Robbe-Grillet. Cast includes Daniel Emilfork, Richard Kattan, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Andrew Sachs, Elliott Spiers and Katja Studt. 82 minutes. Colour. / In the present day, Jan (Kattan), a prince, arrives incognito with his tutor (Sachs) at a coastal resort ...
McCauley, Kirby
(1941-2014) US literary agent, influential fan and editor; he very early on represented several clients, including Stephen King and George R R Martin, who later became extremely successful; both have acknowledged his influence on their careers. Although his professional focus was always on fantasy and horror (see Horror in SF), McCauley's taste as an editor was catholic, beginning with the ...
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 ...