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 ...
Riddell, J L
(1807-1865) US chemist, botanist, inventor and author of Orrin Lindsay's Plan of Aerial Navigation, with a Narrative of his Explorations in the Higher Regions of the Atmosphere, and his Wonderful Voyage Round the Moon! (1847 chap), a Scientific Hoax narrative clearly indebted to Edgar Allan Poe's "Hans Phaall – A Tale" (June 1835 The Southern Literary Messenger), both exemplifying the complex ...
Wooley, Sheb
(1921-2003) A rodeo rider and character actor particular associated with Western movies, Wooley is included here for his 1958 novelty record "The Purple People Eater"; a bouncy, light-hearted jingle about a space Alien, the "one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater" of the title, who descends to earth hoping to join a rock band, an ambition he realizes, perhaps improbably, at the song's end. According to some accounts this release is MGM's best selling single. ...
Eliminators
Film (1986). Altar/Empire. Produced by Charles Band. Directed by Peter Manoogian. Written by Paul DeMeo, Danny Bilson. Cast includes Denise Crosby, Roy Dotrice, Conan Lee, Andrew Prine and Patrick Reynolds. 96 minutes, cut to 91 minutes. Colour. / Enjoyable exploitation frolic whose plot defies precis, but involves a Mad Scientist (Dotrice) – who wants to become a Roman emperor – lurking in the jungle with ...
Jonzun Crew, The
US electro and hip-hop band formed in Boston by the Jonzun brothers (Michael and Soni Johnson) in 1981. Their singles "Pak Man (Look out for the OVC)" (1982), "Space Is the Place" (1983) and "Space Cowboy" (1983) were major club hits, and were included on their debut album Lost in Space (1983), which includes several other sf-themed songs. The freshness of these tracks, which helped codify early electro's mix of Funkadelic-inspired basslines with ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...