SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 20 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 ...
World War Two
The 1939-1945 War was the central military convulsion of the twentieth century, anticipated in numerous Future War scenarios and succeeded – thanks to the climactic use of Nuclear Energy-based Weapons against Japanese Cities – by several Cold War decades overshadowed by the prospect of a nuclear ...
Treibich, S J
(1936-1972) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "First Contact" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction with Laurence M Janifer for August 1965, and who, also with Janifer, wrote the Angelo di Stefano series of Space Operas: Target: Terra (1968 dos), The High Hex (1969 dos) and The Wagered World (1969 chap dos). ...
Sentinel Worlds
Videogame series (from 1988). Designed by Karl Buiter. / Sentinel Worlds is the name used by this encyclopedia to refer to a sequence of two Computer Role Playing Games set in similar, though probably not identical, Space Opera milieux. Both borrow design elements from Space Sims, as do several other contemporary games including ...
Hillman, S A
(? - ) US author of a Near Future medical Technothriller, Cradle Kill (1988), in which prenatal infants are profoundly affected by a chromosomal killer. Reflections of the Future: An Elective Course in Science Fiction and Fact (1975) is a competent primer for school use. [JC]
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...