SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 17 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 ...
Boucher, Chris
(1943-2022) UK Television screenwriter, script/continuity editor and author whose first work of genre interest was the four-part Doctor Who serial The Face of Evil (1-22 January 1977), featuring the Fourth Doctor and introducing the popular Doctor's companion Leela. Further Doctor Who serials in the same year were The Robots of Death (29 January-19 February 1977) and Image of the Fendahl (29 ...
Chesley Awards
The annual Chesley Awards recognize art and Illustration in the fields of sf, fantasy and horror and are named for the artist Chesley Bonestell. Their administrating organization, whose members nominate and vote in the various categories, is ASFA – the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists. Details of the Chesleys' origins are lost to history; it is ...
inFAMOUS
Videogame (2009). Sucker Punch Productions (SPP). Platforms: PS3. / inFAMOUS is a Superhero action Adventure, the design of which shows some influence from Computer Role Playing Game conventions. Gameplay focuses on combat, exploration, and climbing and leaping in the manner of a platform game (see ...
Schlobin, Roger C
(1944-2017) US academic and bibliographer, with the Department of English at Purdue University, Indiana, professor emeritus since 2011. Though Schlobin contributed bibliographically to the sf/fantasy field in general, it is clear that he focused by choice on fantasy. His first book of genre interest, A Research Guide to Science Fiction Studies: An Annotated Checklist of Primary and Secondary Sources for Fantasy and Science Fiction (1977) with L W ...
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 ...