SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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
Sponsor of the day: John Howard
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 ...
Bluejay Books
US publishing house founded by James R Frenkel, who had previously been the editor of Dell's sf line. Bluejay Books began publishing in 1983, its books being distributed by St Martin's Press. Among its titles were Gardner Dozois's best-of-the-year anthologies (see Anthologies), books by Frenkel's wife Joan D Vinge, Dan ...
War of the Satellites
Film (1958). Santa Cruz Productions Ltd/Allied Artists Pictures. Directed by Roger Corman, also executive producer. Written by Lawrence Louis Goldman from a story by Irving Block and Jack Rabin. Cast includes Susan Cabot, Richard Devon and Dick Miller. 66 minutes. Black and white. / Dr Pol Van Ponder (Devon) is the Scientist head of Project Sigma, a United Nations effort to send manned ...
Leivick, H
Working name of Russian composer, journalist and playwright Leivick Halpern (1888-1962), whose language (and identity) was Yiddish; after imprisonment and Siberian exile, he lived in the USA from 1913; his working name was adapted in America to avoid any confusion with the exiled poet Moyshe Leyb-Halpern (1886-1932), also in New York. Of sf interest is his verse drama, published originally in German translation as Der Goylem: A Dramatische Poeme in Akht Bilder (1921; trans J C ...
Flower Kings, The
Prolific Swedish prog-rock band, founded in 1993 by guitarist and singer Roine Stolt (1956- ). The band records in English, and produces lengthy, musically complex albums at a dizzying rate. Back in the World of Adventures (album 1995) is a satisfying if generic collision of Fantasy and sf figures. Retropolis (album 1996) is a concept album set in the titular future-city, in which Judas ...
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 ...