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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 ...
Kagarlitski, Julius
(1926-2000) Russian critic and professor of European drama at the State Theatrical Institute in Moscow. One of the leading Russian critics to have a strong interest in sf, Kagarlitski published the first and most comprehensive study in the then USSR of an individual sf author: Gerbert Uells (1963; trans Moura Budberg as The Life and Thought of H.G. Wells 1966; considerably rev and exp vt Vgliadyvaias v griadushchee ["Staring into the Future"] 1989). He ...
Caro, Dennis R
(1944-2021) US estate tax specialist and author who began publishing sf with "Cantaloupes and Kangaroos" in Clarion III (anth 1973) edited by Robin Scott Wilson. His first sf novel, The Man in the Darksuit: A Futuristic Mystery (1980), depicts with concise and surrealistic hilarity a mean-streets urban future and a mystery concerning the owner of the eponymous Invisibility-conferring outfit. ...
Starship Operators
Japanese animated tv series (2005). Produced by J C Staff. Directed by Takashi Watanabe. Written by Yoshihiko Tomizawa, based on Light Novels by Ryo Mizuno. Voice cast includes Shizuka Itō, Akeno Watanabe, Masumi Asanoand and Cisca Kanzaki. 13 25-minute episodes. Colour. / In a classic future Space Opera setting, cadets from Kibi's Defence University are training aboard the ...
Aldiss, Brian W
(1925-2017) UK anthologist, editor, artist, critic and author, married to Margaret Aldiss, whose early death he commemorated in When the Feast Is Finished: Reflections on Terminal Illness (1999); educated at private schools, which he conspicuously disliked. He served from 1943 through World War Two in the Royal Corps of Signals in India, Burma and Sumatra, being demobilized in 1947; these four years provided ...
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 ...