SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
Grimes
Working name of Canadian singer and musician Claire Elise Boucher (1988- ). Her first album Geidi Primes (2010) is a beautiful, slippery collection of hypnagogic electronic pop songs inspired by Frank Herbert's Dune (fixup 1965) and the film version Dune (1984) directed by David Lynch. Several tracks are named after places ("Caladan") or ...
Jarry, Alfred
(1873-1907) French author who carried the fruits of his scientific education into his surreal avant-garde writing, particularly the influence of the French evolutionary philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941). Jarry's famous play Ubu roi [for subtitle see Checklist] (performed 1896; 1896; trans 1951) and its several sequels including "Ubu enchaîné" (1900 Revue Blanche; trans B Keith and G Legman as King Turd 1953) – helped found the ...
Deus Ex Machina
Videogame (1984). Automata UK. Designed by Mel Croucher. Platforms: Spectrum (1984); MSX (1985); C64 (1986). / Deus Ex Machina is a member of no recognizable school of Videogame design, though its anarchic ethos can be seen in many other British games of the time. It is, rather, the computer game reconceived as concept album (see SF Music); it shares more with the work ...
Russo, Carol
(? - ). American book designer, sometimes credited as a cover artist. She graduated from New York's School of Visual Arts and first worked as a book designer for William Morrow before moving to a similar position at Ace Books, where she met Tom Doherty and Jim Baen, forging friendships that led to her long-term relationships with the companies they later headed, ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...