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Sunday 19 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.
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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 ...
Tunnel, The
Film (1935; vt Trans-Atlantic Tunnel US). Gaumont. Directed by Maurice Elvey. Written by Clemence Dane, L du Garde Peach, based on Der Tunnel (1913; trans 1915) by Bernhard Kellermann. Cast includes George Arliss, Leslie Banks, Richard Dix, Madge Evans, Walter Huston, C Aubrey Smith and Helen Vinson. 94 minutes. Black and white. / A UK remake of the successful German film Der ...
Mascarenhas, Kate
(1980- ) UK psychologist and author; her sf novel, The Psychology of Time Travel (2018), is an Alternate History tale whose Jonbar Point is the Invention in 1967 of Time Travel, made possible through the Discovery of Faster Than Light radio waves. For several ...
Clines, Peter
(1969- ) US screenwriter and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Long, Deep Dream" in Cthulhu Unbound: Vol 2 (anth 2009) edited by Thomas Brannan and John Sunsen, and whose Ex-Heroes sequence beginning with Ex-Heroes (2010) competently exploits Horror in SF topoi as a passel of Superheroes combat a Zombie apocalypse in ...
Fuelin' Around
Short US film (1949). Columbia Pictures. Directed by Edward Bernds. Written by Elwood Ullman. Cast includes Vernon Dent, Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Shemp Howard, Christine McGuire, Jock Mahoney, Hans Schumm, Emil Sitka and Philip Van Zandt. 16 minutes. Black and white. / The Three Stooges (at the time Moe Howard, Fine, and Shemp Howard) are workers laying carpet in the house of Professor Sneed (Sitka), who is about to invent a miraculous new Rocket fuel, ...
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 ...