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 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 ...
Satterfield, Susan
(? - ) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Change" in Eldritch Tales for Fall 1993, and whose novella, Mirror Images (2002 chap), presents a nightmare world or Dimension in which everything is seen anew, to Satirical effect. [JC]
War
This very broad theme permeates large areas of sf, and is principally dealt with in this encyclopedia under the heading Future War. The historical World War One and World War Two have their own more specific entries, as does the dominant latter-twentieth-century nightmare that never in fact achieved reality, the nuclear Holocaust of ...
Wheeler, Scott
Nickname and working name of Donald Wheeler (1937-2016), US author whose Matters of Form (1987) depicts the long campaign of a group of Aliens, stranded on Earth in the twentieth century, to Uplift human civilization to a level at which interstellar Space Flight is possible. Later sections of the book, introducing a second (and evil) alien race, are less effective. [JC]
Conspiracy X
Role Playing Game (1996). New Millenium. Designed by Rick Ernst, Shirley Madewell, Chris Pallace. / The game of Conspiracy X shares much with its rather more haunting contemporary Delta Green (1997) (see Call of Cthulhu). Player characters are agents for a secretive organization known as Aegis which defends present day America against paranormal threats, frequently of extraterrestrial ...
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 ...