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Tuesday 21 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 20 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 ...
Empson, William
(1906-1984) UK literary critic, theorist, poet and author, perhaps the most brilliant (and cantankerous) British thinker about literature in the twentieth century, most famously for Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930; rev 1947), published just after he was stripped of his degree and normal academic career by Cambridge University for a sexual misdemeanour (a condom was discovered in his rooms), and for Some Versions of Pastoral (1935), whose analysis of "Christ and ...
Erikson, Steven
Pseudonym of Canadian archaeologist, anthropologist (no longer active in either profession) and author Steve Rune Lundin (1959- ), whose first books, published under his own name, were mostly nonfantastic, beginning with A Ruin of Feathers (coll of linked stories 1991); the title story of Revolvo and Other Canadian Tales (coll 1998; rev vt including title story only Revolvo 2008 chap as by Steven Erikson) is a ...
Clement, Hal
Working name used for his sf by US author Harry Clement Stubbs (1922-2003); he used his full name for science articles, and painted as George Richard. He held degrees in astronomy, chemistry and education, and was long employed as a high-school science teacher. His first books were very well received; he fell out of favour in his middle years, but his last decades saw him enjoy an Indian summer. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1998, ...
Heath, Peter
Working name of US author Peter Heath Fine (1938-1995), whose novels Assassins from Tomorrow (1967) – which suggests that John F Kennedy (see Icons) was assassinated by killers from the future – The Mind Brothers (1967) and Men Who Die Twice (1968) comprise the thriller-like Mind Brothers sf series, which combines a great deal of fairly convoluted action with Time Travel. The ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...