SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 16 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
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
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 ...
Diafanoidi Vengono la Morte, I
["The Diafanoidi are Death"] Film (1966; vt I Diafanoidi Portano de Morte; vt The War of the Planets). Mercury Film International/Southern Cross Productions. Directed by Antonio Margheriti credited as Anthony Dawson. Written by Renato Moretti and Ivan Reiner. Cast includes Enzo Fiermonte, Lisa Gastoni, Carol Guistini, Franco Nero, Tony Russel and Linda Sini. 97 minutes. Colour. / On New Year's Eve, after Captain DuBois (Giustini) on Earth is overcome by strange green ...
Search
US tv series (1972-1973). Warner Brothers Television for NBC-TV. Series created by Leslie Stevens. Produced by Robert H Justman, Anthony Spinner. Directors included Russ Mayberry, Allen Reisner, Philip Leacock. Writers included Robert C Dennis, Brad Radnitz, Michael R Stein. Cast includes Anthony Franciosa, Doug McClure, Burgess Meredith and Hugh O'Brian. One 100-minute pilot film entitled Probe, plus 23 50-minute episodes. Colour. / This sf detective series is an example of ...
Ungar, Richard
(? - ) Canadian lawyer, illustrator and author, in the latter capacity initially of picture books [not listed]. He is of sf interest for the Time Snatchers sequence beginning with Time Snatchers (2012), set in distant Near Future New Beijing (that is, New York). Here Time Travel is possible, and the young protagonist finds himself working as a ...
Alternity
Role Playing Game (1998). Tactical Studies Rules (TSR). Designed by Bill Slavicsek, Richard Baker. / Alternity was an attempt to create a generic system for role playing in science fiction milieux. It had limited success commercially, though much of the background material was reused in d20 Modern (2002) (see d20). The Alternity core rules are not linked to any specific setting; instead, ...
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 ...