SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 15 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 ...
Rojas, Agustín de
Working name of Agustín de Rojas Anido (1949-2011), considered one of the most relevant sf Cuban authors. A biologist by training, having pursued a career in sport medicine, he dedicated his life to teaching (mostly theatre) and writing. He has an extensive and eclectic oeuvre. / His literary debut was the novel Espiral ["Spiral"] (1982), which in 1980 was awarded the prestigious Cuban Premio David ["David Award"] for new, unpublished ...
Lawnmower Man, The
Film (1992). Allied Vision Lane Pringle/Fuji Eight Co. Directed by Brett Leonard. Written by Leonard, Gimel Everett. Cast includes Pierce Brosnan, Jeff Fahey, Geoffrey Lewis and Jenny Wright. 108 minutes. Colour. / The full title is Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man, but the film has been repudiated by King, angry at the cynicism whereby his old short story "The Lawnmower Man" (May 1975 Cavalier) was purchased to ...
Big Pull, The
UK tv serial (1962). BBC. Producer Terence Dudley. Written Robert Gould. Cast includes William Dexter, Susan Purdie, June Tobin and Frederick Treves. Six 30-minute episodes. Black and white. / This fondly remembered thriller about alien Invasion, quite generously budgeted, has an astronaut returning to Earth after contamination by something strange in the Van Allen belts. There follow a series of strange "fusions" in which pairs of humans, one "dead" and ...
Jacques, Jeph
(1980- ) US musician and Comics artist now living in Canada, best known for his long-running webcomic Questionable Content [see links below], which launched on 1 August 2003 and which he describes as "an internet comic strip about friendship, romance, and robots". New instalments initially appeared twice weekly and later three times weekly; from September 2004 the strip has been published every weekday (though with a few ...
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 ...