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Tuesday 14 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 ...
Jennison, John W
(1911-1980) UK author, one of several who became active as mass-producers of genre fiction for UK paperback houses and who remained reticent about personal details during their careers. From about 1945 to the year in which it is thought he may have died, Jennison seems to have written over 100 novels under at least forty pseudonyms, mostly thrillers and Westerns; he began to publish routine but occasionally engaging sf with two novels as Edgar Rees Kennedy, ...
Tales from the Darkside
US tv series (1983-1988). Laurel Entertainment, Inc. Syndicated. Created by Richard P Rubinstein. Executive producers Jerry Golod, George A Romero and Richard P Rubinstein. Directors included Frank De Palma, Jody Foster and Tom Savini. Writers included Harlan Ellison, David Gerrold, Michael Kube-McDowell and Edithe Swenson. 90 30-minute ...
Rosenberg, Joel
(1954-2011) Canadian author, in the US from an early age; he began publishing sf with "Like the Gentle Rains" in Asimov's for February 1982, but clearly felt more comfortable with tales of novel length. His first book, The Sleeping Dragon (1983), a Sword-and-Sorcery fantasy, began the Recursive Guardians of the Flame sequence, which ends with ...
Nievo, Ippolito
(1831-1861) Italian soldier and author of a short Future History, "Storia filosofica dei secoli futuri fin all'anno E. V. 2222 ovvero fino alla vigilia incirca della fine del mondo" ["Philosophical History of Future Centuries until the year 2222, or, until circa the End of the World"] in Strenna dell'Uomo di Pietra per l'anno 1860 (anth 1860), which anticipates (in line with his involvement in the Italian ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...