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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 ...
Colebatch, Hal
(1945-2019) Australian lawyer, the third son of the Australian politician Sir Hal Colebatch (1872-1953), and author of much nonfiction written from a conservative point of view. His career as a fiction writer was long restricted to the contribution of various Ties to Larry Niven's Man-Kzin Wars Shared World enterprise, beginning with "The Colonels' Tiger" in Man-Kzin Wars VII (anth ...
Dr Cyclops
Film (1940). Paramount Pictures. Directed by Ernest B Schoedsack. Produced by Merian C Cooper and Dale Van Every. Written by Tom Kilpatrick. Cast includes Thomas Coley, Albert Dekker, Paul Fix, Charles Halton, Victor Kilian, Janice Logan, Frank Reicher, Frank Yaconelli. Circa 75 minutes. Colour. / The closeness by date to World War Two is deceptive, as Dr Cyclops, filmed in late 1939 for April 1940 ...
Davis, Nathan, Capt
US author (? - ) of whom nothing is known – it is possible he is either a descendant of the Captain Nathan Davis (? -1844) from Virginia who served in the War of 1812, or borrowed his name – beyond his authorship of a Utopia, Beulah: Or, A Parable of Social Regeneration (1904), which posits a future based on Christian socialism. [JC]
Kong
US letter-size saddle-stapled Cinema magazine printed on newsprint. One undated issue published 1976. Countrywide Communications. No editor named. / One of several one-issue magazines issued to capitalize on the interest in King Kong (1976), this consisted largely of photographs from the original King Kong (1933) along with some short articles. It was subtitled "the most famous monster of ...
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 ...