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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 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 ...
Tarnacre, Robert
Pseudonym of UK author Robert Cartmell (1877-? ) in whose Lost Race tale, Beyond the Swamps (1929), a British patrol boat explores an unknown backwater, upstream from which an intact ancient Roman civilization discovered, and is soon brought to heel under the civilizing influence of Empire discipline. [JC]
Fantastic Novels
US bimonthly Pulp magazine, companion to Famous Fantastic Mysteries, which it somewhat resembled though it reprinted longer works complete in one issue. Five issues were published July 1940 to April 1941, by the Frank A Munsey Corp, then it merged with Famous Fantastic Mysteries; it was revived by Popular Publications to publish 20 more issues March 1948 to June 1951, with the ...
Grantville Gazette
US professional (semi-professional until December 2006) Online Magazine that began as a fan-fiction site, hosted by Baen Books, for fiction set in the Assiti Shards Shared World universe established by Eric Flint in his novel 1632 (2001) and its sequels. The basic premise is that the small American town of Grantville is transported via a ...
Shadow Men, The
Film (1997). Promark Entertainment Group and Spectacor Films. Directed by Timothy Bond. Written by Eric Miller, Justin Stanley. Cast includes Sherilyn Fenn, Eric Roberts and Dean Stockwell. 91 minutes. Colour. / A drab, low-budget dramatization of the Men in Black (see UFOs) mythology, The Shadow Men plays like a mediocre X-Files (1993-2002) episode expanded to feature length. An American family is abducted by a ...
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 ...