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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 ...
Stone, Charles John
(1837-1886) UK author of nonfiction works about the origins of religion, and of What Happened After the Battle of Dorking; Or, the Victory of Tunbridge Wells (1871 chap) anonymous, a response to the grim Battle of Dorking scenario as argued so alarmingly by George T Chesney. In this case the successful reversal of Britain's defeat is placed in Tunbridge Wells, Kent; the tale is told by a participant to his ...
Watson, Jude
Pseudonym of US author Judy Blundell (? - ) who under her own name has written nonfantastic Young Adult novels, one of them, What I Saw and How I Lied (2008), winning the National Book Award. As Watson, after the nonfantastic Brides of Wildcat County series of young adult romantic Westerns featuring a crossdressing tomboy, she is best known for various ...
First Men in the Moon
Film (1964). Columbia. Produced by Charles H Schneer. Directed by Nathan Juran. Written by Nigel Kneale, Jan Read, from The First Men in the Moon (1901) by H G Wells. Cast includes Martha Hyer, Lionel Jeffries and Edward Judd. 107 minutes, cut to 103 minutes. Colour. / This watered-down version of Wells's classic novel is for the most part low farce, with too much random slaughtering of Selenite aliens, but ...
Bow, James
(1972- ) Canadian author, initially of Young Adult fantasy, who began to publish work of genre interest with "A Stone of the Heart" with Erin Bow, in Missing Pieces (anth 2001) edited by Shaun Lyon and Mark Phippen. His first series, the Unwritten Books sequence beginning with The Unwritten Girl (2006), follows its young protagonists' lives in a Toronto where stories come ...
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 ...