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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
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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 ...
Big Bus, The
Film (1976). Paramount Pictures. Produced by Lawrence J Cohen and Fred Freeman. Directed by James Frawley. Written by Cohen and Freeman. Cast includes John Beck, Joseph Bologna, Stockard Channing, José Ferrer, Ruth Gordon, Larry Hagman, Sally Kellerman and Stuart Margolin. 88 minutes. Colour. / The Cyclops, a nuclear-powered luxury double-decker bus equipped with bowling alleys and swimming pools and capable of holding 110 passengers along with its crew, departs on a ...
Tully, John
(1923-2019) UK author of NatFact 7 (1984), a Young Adult tale set in a Near Future Dystopian UK; the eponymous living/manufacturing complex, half Keep half Prison, serves as background for a partially successful revolt led by the young. The eight-volume Starpol set of separately published short stories for younger readers in ...
Breuer, Miles J
(1889-1945) US physician and author of Czech origin who studied in Austin, Texas and Chicago, Illinois, was in active service during World War One in the US Medical Corps, and spent the majority of his life as a medical doctor in Nebraska. He began publishing work of genre interest with "The Adventures of the Bronze Mahadeva" for 10 Story Book in 1909, an early Pulp magazine. In the ...
Rabin, Staton
(1958- ) US author of two Young Adult novels, Black Powder (2005) and The Curse of the Romanovs (2007), both involving Time Travel: the young protagonist of the first, using his teacher's Invention of a Time Machine, travels back to the thirteenth century in order to deter Roger Bacon ...
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 ...