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Sunday 19 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.
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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 ...
Whitnall, Harold O
(1877-1945) US academic and author, whose nonfiction focused on prehistory, with popular studies of early flora and fauna. His Hunter of the Caverns (1939) is a Prehistoric SF tale set in southern France about 30,000 years ago. [JC]
Clark, Pushman
Presumed pseudonym of Heidi Lampietti (1967- ). Pushman is the ostensible name of the nephew of Ensign Clark, creator of the (fictional) 1962 sf television series, a transcript of the episodes of which comprise The Adventures of Damian Koehkh, MD: Space Doctor (coll 2004), Fabulations told in a conspicuously gonzo voice. The proper pronunciation of Koehkh is presumably "kooky"; the book is copyright by Heidi Lampietti, who is ...
Grant, Matthew
(? - ) UK author whose only sf novel is the unremarkable Space Opera Hyper-Drive (1962). [DRL]
Juvenile Series
When dime novels (see Dime-Novel SF) declined and disappeared in the 1900s – partly because of public outcry against their supposed evil effect on boys, and partly because of increasing competition from the Pulp magazines, which had become comparable in price – the torch of juvenile sf was taken up by a new format, illustrated hardcover juvenile book series, and the ideas in these began to range more widely. The ...
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 ...