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 ...
Woolf, Maud
(? - ) Scottish author who began publishing work of genre interest with "The Stranding" in Metaphorosis Magazine for June 2021. In her first novel, the Near Future Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock (2024), it is possible to create entirely convincing Clones of oneself. The eponymous celebrity at the heart of the tale, after producing twelve, soon finds that the ...
Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop
This long-standing US workshop enrols beginning writers who are interested in writing sf. It consists of intensive writing and discussion sessions under the direction of known sf writers, who have included Orson Scott Card, Terry Carr, Samuel Delany, Thomas M Disch, Harlan Ellison, Karen Joy ...
Food of the Gods
Film (1976). American International Pictures. Produced and directed by Bert I Gordon. Written by Gordon, based on a "portion" of The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth (1904) by H G Wells. Cast includes Pamela Franklin, Marjoe Gortner, Ida Lupino and Ralph Meeker. 88 minutes. Colour. / Set on an island off the coast of British Columbia, ...
Gundran, Olive
(1912-1984) US author of The Mysterious Stranger (1958 chap) (see Mysterious Stranger), a novella in which the eponymous message-bearer from Mars opens its communicants to the marvels of the fourth planet. [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 ...