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Thursday 16 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 ...
Zeddies, Ann Tonsor
(1951- ) US author whose Deathgift sequence covers considerable ground in its two volumes. Deathgift (1989), though not technically a Pocket-Universe tale, embodies a fundamental rhythm of constriction and release through the story of a young boy abandoned to the Native-American-like tribes that mediate among the medieval cities which surround them, and who only later is subject to a ...
King Kong [magazine]
UK tabloid-size Cinema magazine. Published by Sportscene Publishers Limited. No editor named. One undated issue 1977. / One of several one-issue publications which capitalized on the remade King Kong (1976), this magazine was primarily a large poster when unfolded. Also included were some articles about the various films featuring the titular creature since the original King Kong (1933); ...
Benchley, Peter
(1940-2006) US author best known for his first novel Jaws (1974), a best-selling tale of a great man-eating shark that terrorizes a seaside resort community; never strictly venturing into the fantastic, it has many effectively timed beats of Horror which were remorselessly amplified in the resulting Monster Movie Jaws (1975), directed by Steven Spielberg and ...
Brockway, Fenner
(1888-1988) UK author long active in socialist politics, long respected for his humane personality. He was imprisoned for his opposition to World War One; served as a member of the British Parliament 1929-1931 and 1950-1964; and was made a life peer in 1964. In his Scientific Romance, Purple Plague: A Tale of Love and Revolution (1935), a liner is quarantined at sea for a decade because of a mysterious ...
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 ...