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Wednesday 15 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 14 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 ...
Agnew, Spiro T
(1918-1996) American politician who served as governor of Maryland (1967-1969) and as vice president under Richard Nixon (1969-1973) until he was forced to resign in late 1973 after pleading no contest to a charge of tax evasion. He then tried his hand at fiction with The Canfield Decision (1976), an inept, widely derided Technothriller involving the efforts of an unscrupulous vice president to gain control of America in 1983; his machinations ...
Onley, David C
(1950- ) Canadian television reporter (designated Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario in July 2007) whose sf novel is the Technothriller Shuttle: A Shattering Novel of Disaster in Space (1981), dealing with attempts to rescue the crew of a seriously damaged space shuttle in orbit. This concept seemed more science-fictional in 1981 than now. [DRL]
Adam, Paul
(1862-1920) French journalist, editor and author, mostly of historical novels through which he espoused strongly argued anarchist views. Of sf interest is Lettres de Malaisie ["Letters from Malaysia"] (November 1896-August 1897 La Revue Blanche; 1898; vt La Cité Prochaine ["The Next City"]: Lettres de Malaisie 1908) which described a totalitarian Dystopia occupying much of the interior of Borneo from 1850 onwards. ...
Holding, Elisabeth Sanxay
(1889-1955) US author who wrote a number of 1920s romantic novels and is best known for the successful noir crime novels which she released from 1929 to 1954. She began to publish work of genre interest with Miss Kelly (1947), a Fantasy for children in which the titular Cat not only understands human language but has the power of speech, long carefully hidden (as advised by her mother) until after an emergency involving an ...
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 ...