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Tuesday 21 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 20 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 ...
Spider, The
US Pulp magazine, 118 issues October 1933 to December 1943; monthly until February 1943, bimonthly thereafter. Published by Popular Publications; edited initially by Rogers Terrill until mid-1936 when he was elevated to Editorial Director, and then by a succession of editors until W Ryerson Johnson closed down the final issue. The Spider, one of the hero/villain pulps, began as a ...
Alchemy
US Small Press magazine that paid a sufficiently high wordage rate to be classified as professional, though it did not have a wide circulation. It was published by Edgewood Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, edited by Steve Pasechnick and saw only three undated issues, published in 2003, 2004 and 2006. Published in review-size format, 88 pages, and comparatively expensive at $7, beautifully designed by Bryan Cholfin but with no internal ...
Wings out of Shadow
Videogame (1983). Berserker Works (BW). Designed by Fred Saberhagen. Platforms: AppleII (1983); DOS (circa 1985). / In 1983 the science fiction editor Jim Baen founded not only the sf and fantasy publishing house Baen Books but also the less well known Videogame publisher Baen Software (BS). At this time the sf ...
Deas, Stephen
(1968- ) UK mathematician and author, mostly of Young Adult fantasy in his early career, including the Adamantine Palace sequence beginning with The Adamantine Palace (2009) and the shorter Thief-Taker's Apprentice sequence beginning with The Thief-Taker's Apprentice (2010). Of sf interest is Elite: Wanted (2014) with Gavin G Smith, writing together as ...
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 ...