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Monday 20 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 ...
Fnord
A much-quoted item of sf Terminology, originally introduced in the anarcho-religious tract Principia Discordia (1965) by Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill, and widely popularized in the Illuminatus! trilogy (1975) by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. In the Paranoia-riddled context of an assumed global conspiracy, fnords are defined as ...
Shaw, Bob
Working name of Northern Irish author Robert Shaw (1931-1996), in Canada 1956-1958 and the mainland UK from 1973. He worked in structural engineering until the age of twenty-seven, then aircraft design, then industrial public relations and journalism, becoming a full-time author in 1975. Shaw was early involved in sf Fandom, with stories and articles published in the Fanzine Slant from 1951 and his first book ...
Hardcore Henry
Film (2015 Russia; original title Khardkor). Huayi Brothers Pictures, Bazelevs, Versus Pictures. Directed by Ilya Naishuller. Written by Ilya Naishuller. Cast includes Haley Bennett, Sharlto Copley, Andrei Dementiev, Danila Kozlovsky, Tim Roth. 96 minutes. Colour. / The Cyborg "Henry" escapes from the laboratory where he was created, dropping from an Airship into the streets of Moscow. There, he joins forces with ...
Reid, Desmond
A House Name used by at least thirty authors for Sexton Blake Library tales, one of which – The World-Shakers! (1960 chap) by Rex Dolphin – was a UFO tale. Another – Caribbean Crisis (1962 chap) by James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock – was ...
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 ...