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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.
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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 ...
Davis, Frederick C
(1902-1977) US author of pulp fiction, sometimes under pseudonyms, from 1922 or earlier. He published detective fiction in book form from the mid-1930s until the end of his active career in the late 1960s. His most interesting early work of sf interest – mainly through explanations of the one-way Moon-shaped glass helmet worn as a disguise by the crimebusting hero – was the Moon Man sequence, 39 novellas published from 1933 to 1937 in Ten Detective Aces. After the ...
Versins, Pierre
The name adopted by French scholar, author and self-styled utopian Jacques Chamson (1923-2001), a survivor of Auschwitz. He began writing sf in the 1950s, publishing several novels, including Les étoiles ne s'en foutent pas ["The Stars Care"] (1954), En avant, Mars ["Forward to Mars"] (1955), Feu d'artifice ["Fireworks"] (Paris: Métal, 1955) and Le professeur ["The Professor"] (1956), and over 20 stories (some with his wife ...
Dreamscape
Film (1984). Bella Productions/Zupnik-Curtis Enterprises. Directed by Joseph Ruben. Written by David Loughery, Chuck Russell, Ruben, based on a story by Loughery. Cast includes Eddie Albert, Kate Capshaw, David Patrick Kelly, Christopher Plummer, Dennis Quaid and Max Von Sydow. 99 minutes. Colour. / A gambler with psychic powers (Quaid) is persuaded to take part in experiments in "dreamlinking" at a research centre. He learns how to enter other people's dreams and interact with them. ...
Sinclair, Carl
(? - ) New Zealand-born UK author, for whose sf novel Sixth Cycle (2014) with Darren Wearmouth, see his collaborator. In his second novel, Escalation Force (2015), a deadly Weapon is discovered in an Underground cache dating back to World War Two. [JC]
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 ...