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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 ...
Davidson, Lionel
(1922-2009) UK author who began to publish short fiction – none of it apparently fantastic – in the 1930s, and who was best known for his intermittent but highly successful thrillers, beginning with The Night of Wenceslas (1960). In his second novel, The Rose of Tibet (1962), a young man traces his half-brother into a Lost World in the heart of 1950 Tibet, just as China prepares to invade; it is a tale full of the same ...
Collier's Weekly
US news and general interest magazine, noted early in its existence for its investigative journalism; counted as one of the Slicks although for most of its run it was in tabloid format. It was founded by the Irish immigrant Peter Fenelon Collier (1849-1909) as Collier's Once A Week from 28 April 1888, edited by fellow Irishman Nugent Robinson. It became Collier's Weekly in 1895 and simply Collier's from 1905. It remained weekly to 25 July 1953, ...
Unusual Tales
US Comic (1955-1965). 49 issues. Charlton Comics. Artists include Vince Alascia, Steve Ditko, Dick Giordano, Rocco "Rocke" Mastroserio, Bill Molno and Charles Nicholas. Most of the scripts were by the prolific Joe Gill. 36 pages, except for one double-length issue. Usually 4-5 strips per issue, plus a two-page text story and often one, sometimes two, 1-2 page fiction or ...
Videodrome
Film (1982). Filmplan International/Guardian Trust/Canadian Film Development Corp. Written and directed by David Cronenberg. Cast includes Les Carlson, Peter Dvorsky, Deborah Harry, Sonja Smits and James Woods. 89 minutes. Colour. / Bravely placing his outrageous exploitation movie squarely in the centre of media-theorists' debates about interaction between viewer and screen, Cronenberg here produces perhaps the best (and also the oddest) of his ...
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 ...