SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
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 ...
Le Tellier, Hervé
(1957- ) French mathematician and author, president of the Oulipo Group (see Mathematics; Oulipo); active from around 1990. Though much of his work is expectably and proficiently generated from "arbitrary" models, with linguistic/mathematical rhythms often commanding multiple unpackings of human behaviour, including Sex positions and outcomes, he is primarily of sf interest for ...
Zinoviev, Alexander
(1922-2006) Russian author whose Ziiaiushchie vysoty (1976 Switzerland; trans Gordon Clough as The Yawning Heights 1979) is a raw Satire of the gerontocracy which dominated the USSR at the time of its writing: in a Dystopia known as Ibansk, every citizen is named Ibanov in order that all distinctions be erased; most citizens commit Suicide, in due course, in a government ...
Gallagher, Stephen
(1954- ) UK scriptwriter and author who signed some of his early work Steve Gallagher. He first came to prominence with sf scripts, notably his Radio series The Last Rose of Summer (1977), which he adapted as his first novel, The Last Rose of Summer (1978; rev vt Dying of Paradise 1983 as by Stephen Couper) and its sequel, Hunter's Moon (1980), which he novelized as The Ice Belt ...
Hand of Death
Film (1962; vt Five Fingers of Death). Associated Producers/20th Century Fox Film Corporation. Produced by Eugene Ling. Directed by Gene Nelson. Written by Ling. Cast includes John Agar, Stephen Dunne, Roy Gordon and Paula Raymond. 58 minutes. Black and white. / Idealistic Scientist Alex Marsh (Agar) is developing an experimental nerve gas which he naively hopes will be a Weapons so deadly as to bring about an end to ...
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 ...