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Tuesday 21 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 ...
Alraune
Film (1928; vt Unholy Love; vt Daughter of Destiny). Ama Film. Directed by Henrik Galeen. Written by Galeen, based on Alraune (1911; trans 1929) by Hanns Heinz Ewers. Cast includes Brigitte Helm, Ivan Petrovich and Paul Wegener. 125 minutes. Black and white. / A professor of genetics (Wegener) conducts a cold-blooded experiment into the Nature-versus-nurture controversy (see ...
Man Called Flintstone, The
Animated film (1966; vt The Flintstones in The Man Called Flintstone). Hanna-Barbera Productions/Columbia Pictures. Produced and directed by Joseph Barbera and William Hanna. Written by Harvey Bullock and R S Allen. Cast includes Mel Blanc, June Foray, Paul Frees, Gerry Johnson, Don Messick, Alan Reed, Jean Vander Pyl and Janet Waldo. 89 minutes. Colour. / Secret Agent Rock Slag (Frees) is injured in the town of Bedrock in a battle with agents ...
Strange Days
Film (1995). Universal Pictures presents a Lightstorm Entertainment production. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Written by James Cameron and Jay Cocks. Cast includes Angela Bassett, Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore and Michael Wincott. 145 minutes. Colour. / In the last days of 1999, after Los Angeles (see California) has become a no man's land, a trafficker in bootleg recordings of first-person experiences is ...
von Trojan, Kurt
(1937-2006) Austrian-born journalist and author, in Australia from the 1940s. His first novel, The Transing Syndrome (1985), uses "transing" (Matter Transmission) to move the plot along in an Alternate-World Dystopia; the protagonist worries that his Identity may be fading with each transmission, like increasingly obscure photocopies of a ...
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 ...