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Wednesday 22 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 20 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 ...
Physics
In discussing the scientific content of sf it is customary to regard the sciences as ranging from "hard" to "soft", with physics lying at the hard end of the spectrum (see Hard SF). A concern with the hard sciences is generally held to have characterized sf of the period 1940-1960, or a type of sf whose locus classicus is to be found in that period, and so we may expect this type of sf, in its scientific aspect, to be dominated by physics. In fact a large part ...
Dick, Philip K
(1928-1982) US author, one of the most important figures in twentieth-century Genre SF and an author of general significance. He is a figure who helps define by contrast those identified in this Encyclopedia as Mainstream Writers of SF: writers, that is, whose comprehension of the significant literatures of the last century has sometimes seemed less than full. An author like Thomas ...
Full Motion Video
Term used to refer to pre-recorded film footage used in a Videogame, as opposed to two or three-dimensional graphics generated by the game as it is being played. Such footage can be produced by computer animation or by filming live actors on physical sets. It is typically used for "cut scenes", short video segments which establish a frame narrative (see Interactive Narrative) for the game or advance a linear narrative over ...
White, Kiersten
(1983- ) US author most of whose work, generally couched for the Young Adult market, is fantasy, including the Paranormalcy sequence beginning with Paranormalcy (2010), whose young protagonist baulks at her role in the International Paranormal Containment Agency, but does continue to hunt for deities (see Gods and Demons) hiding in the interstices of the normal world [see Urban ...
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 ...