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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 ...
Freeman, Steven F
(? - ) US author who also writes as by Malcolm Pierce; his Blackwell Files sequence beginning with Nefarious (2013) [series not listed in Checklist] edges toward genuine Technothriller territory, but the adventures of the married team of investigators do not ever quite reach the fantastic. Freeman is of sf interest for Supertide (2020), a Disaster tale ...
Hauru no Ugoku Shiro
Japanese animated film (2004; vt Howl's Moving Castle). Studio Ghibli. Based on the novel Howl's Moving Castle (1986) by Diana Wynne Jones. Directed and written by Hayao Miyazaki. Voice cast includes Chieko Baisho, Tatsuya Gashuin, Ryūnosuke Kamiki, Takuya Kimura and Akihiro Miwa. 119 minutes. Colour. / When staid young hatmaker Sophie (Baisho) meets the ...
Goodfellow, Peter
(1950-2022) UK artist and illustrator who studied art at Middlesbrough College of Art 1967-1968 and the Central School of Art in London 1967-1971. He began to publish work of genre interest in 1972 with the UK Sidgwick and Jackson edition of Arthur C Clarke's Tales from the White Hart (coll of linked stories 1957), showing the titular Club-Story pub being overwhelmed by a giant squid. From then until the late ...
van Lorne, Warner
Pseudonym of US author Nelson Tremaine (1907-1971), author under that name of a number of stories in Astounding Science-Fiction from July 1935 to January 1939, plus "Wanted: 7 Fearless Engineers!" (February 1939 Amazing). "The Blue-Men of Yrano" (January 1939 Astounding) is probably the best remembered. His brother, F Orlin Tremaine, wrote at least one van Lorne story. [MJE]
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 ...