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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
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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 ...
Day, Donald B
(1909-1978) Pioneer sf indexer, resident in Oregon. His Index to the Science Fiction Magazines 1926-1950 (1952; rev 1982), has become, along with its successors compiled by other hands (see Bibliographies), an essential tool for sf research. [PN]
Austin, Mary
(1868-1934) US critic, poet, playwright and author of fiction and nonfiction, including studies of the natural world of the American South-West like The Land of Little Rain (1903), and Taos Pueblo (graph 1930) with photographs by Ansel Adams (1902-1984). Her involvement with Native American life and arts was intensified by Feminist arguments that women were similarly oppressed (see Race in SF; ...
Counterblast
Film (1948; vt Devil's Plot US). British National Films/Pathé Pictures Ltd. UK/Herbert Bregstein US. Produced by Louis H Jackson. Directed by Paul L Stein. Written by Jack Whittingham from a story by Guy Morgan. Cast includes Robert Beatty, Anthony Eustrel, Mervyn Johns and Nova Pilbeam. 90 minutes. Black and white. / 1948: Nazi bacteriologist Dr Bruckner (Johns), "The Beast of Ravensbruck", escapes from a POW camp with two colleagues. He murders Australian Dr Forrester ...
Trudno byt' bogom
1. Film (1989; vt Hard To Be a God). Dovzhenko Studio/Halleluya Film GMBH/VO Sovexportfilm. Directed by Peter Fleischmann. Written by Fleischmann, Jean-Claude Carriere, Dal Orlov, based on Trudno byt' bogom (1964; trans as Hard to be a God 1973) by Arkady and Boris Strugatski. Cast includes Andrei Boltnev, Edward Dzentara, Alexander Filippenko, Ann Gautier, Mikhail Gluzsky, Werner Herzog and Christina ...
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 ...