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Tuesday 14 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
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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 ...
Smith, Ernest U
(? -? ) US author whose Prehistoric SF tale, Rachel: A Story of the Great Deluge [for subtitle see checklist below] (1904), describes the Biblical Flood in scientific terms, and traces the course of human history through the wanderings of the survivors of the deluge. [JC]
Khaw, Cassandra
(1984- ) Name long used exclusively by the Malaysian author born Zoe Khaw Joo Ee, who began publishing work of genre interest with "What the Highway Prefers" in Lackington's for Winter 2015. Most of their work is horror, as in the Gods and Monsters sequence beginning with Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef (2015 ebook) [see Checklist below]; at times there is a strong inflection of Horror in SF, as in the ...
Gillmore, Parker
(1835-1900) UK soldier, hunter and author, mostly of travel books published 1869-1896, often as by Ubique. His sf novel, The Amphibion's Voyage (1885), is a tale shaped suspiciously like a travelogue, but manages to evoke some interest for the eponymous amphibious vehicle, which carries its passengers through Africa into encounters with a sea Monster or two. [JC]
Barry, Iris
(1895-1969) UK-born critic, film curator, poet and author, in US from 1930; she lived with Wyndham Lewis for several years from around the end of World War One until 1922, having two children with him. She was primarily a writer on film – D W Griffith: American Film Master (1940 chap) was published by the Museum of Modern Art in New York – and as the founder in 1935 and curator until her 1950 retirement of the MOMA Film Library was 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 ...