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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
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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 ...
Haunted Hotel
US animated tv series (2025-current). Titmouse, Harmonius Claptrap, Magic Giraffe, Netflix Animation. Created by Matt Roller. Directors include Christopher Nance, Bob Suarez and Meg Waldow. Writers include Matt Roller. Voice cast includes Eliza Coupe, Will Forte, Skyler Gisondo, Natalie Palamides and Jimmi Simpson. Ten 25 minute episodes to date. Colour. / Katherine Freeling (Coupe) inherits the Undervale Hotel from her recently deceased brother Nathan (Forte), who won it in a card ...
Freeman, Gillian
(1929-2019) UK author active from around 1955; she is of sf interest for The Leader (1966), set in the kind of Near Future Dystopian UK threatened, as not infrequently in novels of this category published in post-war UK, by the rise of a fascist nonentity through an increasingly ruthless exploitation of racial and ethnic prejudices to promote his Britain First party. The Undergrowth of Literature (1967), ...
Portwin, E T
(1912-2006) UK publisher and author, born Portwine (name changed legally), who sometimes wrote as by Elizabeth Portwin, his wife's name; as he normally signed his books E T Portwin, some confusion ensued. His books, which are Children's SF, begin with The Boy in the Moon (1945 chap) as by Elizabeth Portwin; of greatest interest is Death Swamp and Other Adventure Stories (coll 1946), whose title novella dramatizes the almost fatal ...
Fergusson, Adam
(1932- ) UK politician, journalist and author, Conservative member of Parliament 1979-1984, a strong supporter of Britain's membership in the EEC. Of his nonfiction, he is best known for When Money Dies (1975), narrative description of the effect of hyperinflation on the 1920s Weimar Republic. His first novel, Roman Go Home (1969), is a mildly fantasticated Satire on the Roman Empire's abandonment of Britain in the ...
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 ...