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Tuesday 14 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 ...
Miller, Marc
(1947- ) US Game designer, inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design Hall of Fame in 1981. Miller was an important figure in the early development of the US Role Playing Game and Wargame industries, both as a founder of Game Designers' Workshop – one of the earliest companies enthusiastic about creating science-fictional games – and as the designer ...
Dick Tracy
US Comics character, created in 1931 by Chester Gould, who has long appeared in daily comic strips as well as books, comic books, radio, cinema, and television programmes; after Gould retired in 1977, several other artists have continued the strip. In his first three decades, Tracy's exploits as an urban detective fighting colourful criminals (see Crime and Punishment) were realistic, though one item of mild sf interest was ...
Fantasy Film Journal
Letter-size saddle-stapled Cinema magazine printed on middle-grade paper. Published by Quarterly Nostalgia Graphics. Editor: unknown. Two numbered but undated issues in 1977. / Short-lived but well-produced publication which like so many others failed to obtain adequate distribution. #1 was largely dedicated to Star Wars (1977), but also featured material on Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman (see ...
Jones, Raymond F
(1915-1994) US author, very active for about fifteen years after he first appeared in Astounding for September 1941 with "Test of the Gods". He was virtually silent in the 1960s; some more routine novels appeared in the 1970s. His best-known short story is the witty "Noise Level" (December 1952 Astounding), an archetypal Astounding tale of Conceptual Breakthrough, scientific ...
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 ...