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Tuesday 14 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 ...
Von der Passer, Arnold
Pseudonym of German engineer and author Franz Lewy Hoffmann (1851-1917). His sf novel, Mene Tekel!: Eine Entdeckungsreise nach Europe ["Mene Tekel!: A Journey of Discovery to Europe"] (1893), places a Future History of Europe from 1898 to 2398 within the frame of an expedition (see Fantastic Voyage) undertaken in the latter year by a team of Freilanders anxious to discover what has been happening in the ...
Clair, René
Pseudonym of French filmmaker and author René-Lucien Chomette (1898-1981) whose first feature film, Paris qui Dort (1924), is of sf interest; though many of his subsequent movies, in France, the UK and America, were of fantasy interest, their immersion in the coils of Fantastika defaulted to the unargued and the oneiric. A partial exception is It Happened Tomorrow ...
Janusz A Zajdel Award
Polish Award for Fantastika chosen by Fandom. This was founded in 1984 at Polcon, the Polish national Convention, and initially named Sfinks, to be presented for literary achievements in the field of sf (later also Fantasy) in the preceding calendar year, so the first award for the year 1984 would be given at the 1985 ...
Famous Films
Letter-size perfect-bound Cinema magazine printed on cheap newsprint. Publisher: Warren Publishing. Editor: Russ Jones. Three issues, all in 1964. / Famous Films was apparently the first US Media Magazine to adapt Horror and sf films in photonovel or fumetti form, a practice which was to become very common for some years from the mid-1970s. The ...
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 ...