SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 18 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 ...
Wilson, Theodora Wilson
(1865-1941) UK teacher and author, active in the latter capacity from about 1900. She was born a Quaker, and with the onset of World War One returned to that faith. Of interest is The Last Weapon: A Vision (1916), in which Scientific Romance and fantasy modes intermix: the eponymous Weapon, known as Hellite, is capable of destroying anything it touches. Perhaps in order to make ...
Area 51
Area 51 is a United States Air Force base in southern Nevada, the existence of which was not formally acknowledged by the US Government until 1995. This secrecy and the classified nature of the base's work have made it a magnet for Paranoia-fraught conspiracy theories, the most popular of which relate to UFOs and Aliens (often linked to the supposed crashed Spaceship recovered near ...
Jones, Stephen Graham
(1972- ) US author, a Native American, much of whose work has viewed the world experienced by Native Americans in terms of horror (see Horror in SF); the estranged possibly delusional protagonist of his first novel, The Fast Red Road: A Plainsong (2000), embarks on a Fantastic Voyage through an America that he understands as a Post-Holocaust Weird ...
Schulze, Klaus
(1947-2022) German electronic musician who was the drummer on the first Tangerine Dream album, then formed Ash Ra Tempel, leaving after their first album (though occasionally guesting on later releases). He then pursued a solo career, but would also often collaborate with others – such as Pete Namlook (on a series of albums loosely named after ...
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 ...