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Thursday 16 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 ...
Peterson, Lorin
(? - ) US author of Ma Windsor (1983), a Near Future Satire on American mores and politics whose protagonist, being elected the first female President of the United States, causes disarray by making the wealthy ineligible to claim social security, reducing the nuclear Weapons stockpile, and bringing all the soldiers home from their international redoubts. ...
Pierre, DBC
Pseudonym of Australian author Peter Finlay (1961- ), the initials of whose pseudonym stand for Dirty But Clean, a reference to the author's adventurous but troubled early life; these early experiences are surreally unpacked in his first novel, Vernon God Little: A 21st Century Comedy in the Presence of Death (2003), a gonzo Bildungsroman which gestures at the fantastic. Conjoined twins in an almost Near Future, ...
Kojima, Hideo
(1963- ) Japanese Game designer who began work on Videogames with Penguin Adventure (1986 Konami, MSX) designed by Hiroyuki Fukui, Ryouhei Shogaki, an action game in which the player must bring home a golden apple to cure an ailing penguin princess. Kojima's influence is not, however, especially noticeable in this work. The first game he actually designed was Metal Gear ...
Westheimer, David
(1917-2005) US journalist and author, best known for the nonfantastic Von Ryan's Express (1964). He is of sf interest for Lighter Than a Feather (1971; vt Downfall 1972; rev vt Death Is Lighter Than a Feather 2000), an Alternate History tale set near the end of World War Two, the Jonbar Point being the decision not to drop the nuclear ...
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 ...