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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 ...
Symonds, John
(1914-2006) UK playwright and author best known for his studies of Aleister Crowley, in particular The Great Beast: The Life of Aleister Crowley (1951; rev 1971); he served as Crowley's literary executor. He is however more significant for his fiction, beginning with William Waste (1947), most notable perhaps for its innocent but wily protagonist's encounter with a wax Doll in a great glass case who turns out to be alive [for Aleister Crowley, Dolls and more ...
Pfeil, Fred
Working name of US academic and author John Frederick Pfeil (1949-2005), whose sf novel, Goodman 2020 (1986), portrays in a superbly suffocating present tense the Dystopian corporate USA of 2020 CE, where all power has fallen into the hands of priest-like businessmen. The most powerful of these hires Goodman in the role of "professional friend", to give him moments of human society, but Goodman eventually kills him, escapes into the barrios (and the ...
Parker, Benson
(? - ) US author of sf interest for The Adventures of Little Fuzzy (1983 chap), notionally with H Beam Piper, a brief (43pp) Children's SF adaptation of Piper's Little Fuzzy (1962). [DRL]
Covina, Gina
(1952- ) US author on various topics, including Ecology issues, and author of a Near Future Disaster novel, The City of Hermits (1983), which is set in California after a great earthquake; there are hopes, subsequently, of a Utopian outcome. [JC]
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 ...