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Wednesday 22 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 ...
Hughes, Edward P
(? - ) US author – it has been speculated that he may be Welsh – who began publishing sf with "In the Name of the Father" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for September 1980, the first tale in his Liam McGrath sequence, which was continued in his first novel, The Long Mynd (1985), set in a Post-Holocaust world brought into being by ...
Vassos, Ruth
(1896-1965) US fashion designer/adviser and author who, in collaboration with her husband, the artist/industrial designer John Vassos (1898-1985), produced three narratives which, though very heavily illustrated, were not constructed as Graphic Novels. Of sf interest is Ultimo: An Imaginative Narration of Life Under the Earth With Projections by John Vassos and the Text by Ruth Vassos (1930), which depicts a future Earth whose inhabitants have ...
Garbutt, John
(1902-1991) UK author of fiction for boys who also wrote as by John Allan, John Brearley, under which name he wrote some Sexton Blake novels, John Brierly and Clifford Cameron, the Lance Kearney and Jigger Gerrard stories in Modern Wonder as by the last name being of some interest; he also wrote for Captain Justice. The Night Hawk: A Fight for a Throne (21 February 1931 Nelson Lee Library; 1932 chap) is a ...
Fire Next Time, The
Made-for-tv mini-series (1993; vt American Inferno). RIH Entertainment for CBS-TV. Produced by Edwin Self. Directed by Tom McLoughlin. Screenplay by James Henerson. Cast includes Bonnie Bedelia, Richard Farnsworth, Ashley Jones, Craig T Nelson and Justin Whalin. 195 minutes. Colour. / The Fire Next Time begins in 2005, moving to 2017 after a series of natural Disasters has broken out around the world due to ...
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 ...