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Thursday 16 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 ...
Covell, Ian
(1953-2019) UK author, bibliographer, book dealer and university administrator who first began to publish work of genre interest with "Some Notes on British Authors" in The Science-Fiction Collector for July 1977. Interviews with John Brunner, Michael Moorcock and Bob Shaw appeared in ...
Déjà Vu
Film (2006). Touchstone Pictures (see The Walt Disney Company) and Jerry Bruckheimer Films present a Scott Free production. Directed by Tony Scott. Written by Bill Marsilii, Terry Rossio. Cast includes Jim Caviezel, Val Kilmer, Paula Patton and Denzel Washington. 126 minutes. Colour. / In this Time-Travel action film, a federal agent (Washington) investigates the bombing of a ferry in New Orleans. He is ...
Idol, Billy
(1955- ) Stage name of UK pop star William Michael Albert Broad, who merits mention here only on account of his album Cyberpunk (1993), a punk-electronica concept album inspired by Idol's reading of William Gibson's Neuromancer. Many of Idol's earlier rock-punk songs are catchy, and some have proved enduring, but this album is very bad. [AR]
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
US animated film shorts (1927-1938; 1943). M.J. Winkler Productions (1927-1929), Walter Lantz Productions (1929-1938). Created by Walt Disney. Directors include Walt Disney and Walter Lantz. Writers include Walt Disney, Walter Lantz and Victor McLeod. Voice cast includes Pinto Colvig, Bernice Hansen, William Nolan and Mickey Rooney. 193 6-9 minute episodes, silent until February 1929, then with sound. All but three black and white. / The ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...