SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 20 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: Paul Giamatti
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 ...
Motta, Luigi
(1881-1955) Italian author, prolific for many years, beginning with several tales in collaboration with the already famous Emilio Salgari (1862-1911). Much of Motta's sf output is not identified here, though La Principessa delle rose (1911; trans William Collinge as The Princess of the Roses 1919) gained some English-language readers for its Prediction of World War One, which he describes in grim ...
Magee, Rufus
(1845-1929) US politician and author tentatively identified as having written The Battle of the Moy; Or, How Ireland Gained Her Independence 1892-1894 (1883), published anonymously in America and the UK. The novel depicts a Near Future European war, during the course of which Ireland gains her independence from Britain. The identification with Magee is based on bibliographical evidence from L W Currey. [JC]
Haraucourt, Edmond
(1856-1941) French author who seems to have begun publishing Scientific Romance tales with "L'Immortalité, conte philosophique" (1888 Revue Bleue) which, like much of his work, treats Immortality as a pernicious illusion, and "La Fin du Monde" (1893 Revue Hebdomadaire), both assembled with other work as L'Effort ["Effort"] (coll 1894). More radically, the later Le Gorilloïde ...
Goldstone, Lawrence
(1947- ) US author of considerable nonfiction, including several perusals of the book trade, and of Off-Line (1998), a thriller set in a world whose citizens, as the moment of Singularity seems to be approaching, have become sidelined; any speculations about the nature of the Near Future are soon drowned in action. [JC]
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 ...