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Sunday 22 February 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 18 February 2026
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Clift, Bethany
(? - ) UK filmmaker, screenwriter and author whose first novel, Last One at the Party (2021), is set in a Near Future world where the Covid-19 Pandemic has been succeeded by a second, far more devastating plague known as 6DM: six days being the maximum time a sufferer can survive. The protagonist, who may be the only human being left (see Last Man), ...
Marriott Watson, Henry Crocker
(1839-1901) Australian minister and author, in New Zealand from 1873; his family surname was simply Watson, but both he and his son, H B Marriott Watson, used the fuller name in honour of the distinguished Marriott family, with whom a relationship was claimed; he did, however, write at least once as Henry Crocker. Erchomenon; or, The Republic of Materialism (1879), a Sleeper Awakes ...
Connington, J J
Pseudonym for all his fiction of Scots author and chemistry professor Alfred Walter Stewart (1880-1947), coiner of the term "isobar" in the sense which (complementing "isotope") describes elements of the same atomic weight but with different atomic numbers; served in World War One as civilian advisor on scientific matters. As a writer, he is best known for his 25 detective novels and for a Scientific Romance ...
Lovelace, Ada
The name by which UK mathematician and Computer theorist Augusta Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852) is normally and conveniently known; daughter of Lord Byron. Lovelace was raised by her mother from infancy, gaining from Anne Noel (1792-1860) a precocious interest and intensive education in Mathematics, accompanied by a growing competence in other languages, as revealed in the recent ...
Tobor the Great
Film (1954). Dudley Pictures Corporation. Produced by Richard Goldstone. Directed by Lee Sholem. Written by Philip MacDonald from a story by Carl Dudley. Tobor designed by Robert Kinoshita. Cast includes Karin Booth (Janice Roberts), Billy Chapin, Charles Drake, Steven Geray, Taylor Holmes and J Lewis Smith (uncredited). 77 minutes. Black and white. / The US government wants to attempt manned Space Flight, but Dr ...
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 ...