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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.
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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 ...
Peck, Wallace
Pseudonym of the unidentified US author (? -? ) of The Golden Age of Patents: A Parody on Yankee Inventiveness (1888 chap), which describes a series of spoof Inventions, sometimes with an effect of Satire, though some Yankee inspirations are narrated as tall tales. The illustrations are amusing. [JC]
Scavenger's Reign
US animated tv series (2023). Titmouse Inc, Green Street Pictures. Created by Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner, based on their animated short Scavengers (2016). Directed by Joseph Bennett, Charles Huettner, Jonathan Djob Nkondo, Diego Porral, Rachel Reid, Christine Jie-Eun Shin and Vincent Tsui. Writers include Joseph Bennett, Sean Buckelew, Charles Huettner and James Merrill. Voice cast includes Sunita Mani, Pollyanna McIntosh, Wunmi Mosaku, Alia Shawkat, Bob ...
Turton, Godfrey
(1901-1985) UK author of such fantasies as The Devil's Churchyard (1970) and The Festival of Flora: A Story of Ancient and Modern Times (1972). He remains of some sf interest for There Was Once a City (1927), in which an ancient City is inundated through a Disaster whose causation is Equipoisal between supernatural hubris and natural cataclysm; and ...
Rochester, George E
(1898-1966) UK author; his experiences in active service during World War One inspired much of his fiction, most of it written for boys under his own and several other names, including John Beresford, Frank Chaltam, Barton Furse, Jeffrey Gaunt, Eric Roche and Hamilton Smith. Much of this output did not reach book form, including his first known sf tale, "The Black Vulture" (28 April-23 June 1934 Scoops), about a ...
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 ...