SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 21 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 ...
Akudama Drive
Japanese animated tv series (2020). Created by Pierrot and Too Kyo Games. Pierrot (studio). Directed by Tomohisa Taguchi. Written by Norimitsu Kaihō and Tomohisa Taguchi. Voice cast includes Shun Horie, Kana Ichinose, Tomoyo Kurosawa, Megumi Ogata, Takahiro Sakurai, Shunsuke Takeuchi, Maaya Uchida and Yūichirō Umehara. Twelve 24-minute episodes. Colour. / In the Near Future Japanese ...
Niven, Larry
Working name of US author Laurence van Cott Niven (1938- ). He was born in California, where he set many of his stories, and gained a BA in mathematics from Washburn University, Kansas. From his first publication, "The Coldest Place" in If for December 1964, he set his mark on the US sf field as a Hard SF writer of remarkable vigour and inventiveness, soon winning four short-fiction Hugos: for ...
IAFA Award
Awards presented since 1985 by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA). Winners of the Distinguished Scholarship award – presented since 1986 – are listed below. Other categories, perhaps of less general interest to the science fiction community, include the William L Crawford Fantasy Award for a debut work of fantasy, the Robert A Collins Service Award for service to the IAFA and regular ...
Devil Girl from Mars
Film (1954; 1955 US). Danziger Productions Ltd/British Lion Film Corporation (UK)/Spartan Films (US). Produced by Edward J Danziger and Harry Lee Danziger. Directed by David MacDonald. Written by James Eastwood from the play by Eastwood and John C Mather. Cast includes Adrienne Corri, Hazel Court, Patricia Laffan, Hugh McDermott and Peter Reynolds. 77 minutes. Black and white. / A flying saucer (see UFOs) with a rotating upper section lands in the ...
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 ...