SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 15 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
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
Rosenblum, J Michael
(1917-1978) One of the early major figures in UK Fandom, active from the mid-1930s in the Leeds sf group, about whose internal controversies he wrote in Thrilling Wonder Stories for February 1938; he attended the historically important 1937 Convention held in Leeds, West Yorkshire. His Fanzines included The Futurian (8 issues 1938-1940), its ...
Pirate Writings
US Semiprozine, 26 issues, Winter 1992 to October 2005 (last two issues undated), published by Pirate Writings, New York until issue #16 (Spring 1998), thereafter by DNA Publications, Radford, Virginia; edited by Edward J McFadden III. Retitled Fantastic Stories of the Imagination from issue #19 Spring 2000. Intended as quarterly but only occasionally hit a regular schedule. The original title was never fully explained; like a pirate ship, the magazine ...
Cabiya, Pedro
(1971- ) Puerto Rico-born author and cultural critic who directs the Centro de Lenguas y Culturas Modernas de la Universidad Iberoamericana in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), and the Heart of Gold Films production. He became a relevant figure in the Hispanic Caribbean when his short-story collection Historias tremendas ["Tremendous Stories"] (coll 1999), was declared Best Book of ...
Carruth, Hayden
(1862-1932) US author and literary editor of The Women's Home Companion; The Adventures of Jones (coll of linked stories 1895), in which Jones tell his audience various tall tales, some of them sf, some of them about his own Inventions; during the course of these narratives, much contemporary sf – including the fading vogue for the extraordinary voyage (see Fantastic Voyages) is spoofed. [JC]
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 ...