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Friday 17 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 ...
Metroid
Videogame (1986). Nintendo. Designed by Gunpei Yokoi, Yoshio Sakamoto. Platforms: NES (1986); GBA (2005); Wii (2007). / Similarly to its contemporary Exile (1988), Metroid is a combination of platform and puzzle game (see Videogames), displayed from the side in two dimensions. As with many examples of the more recent action Adventure ...
Hells
Japanese animated film (2008; original title Heruzu Enjueruzu; vt Hell's Angels). Madhouse. Based on the Manga Hells Angels by Sin'Ichi Hiromoto. Directed by Yoshiki Yamakawa. Written by Kazuyuki Fudeyasu and Yoshiki Yamakawa. Voice cast includes Chō, Keiji Fujiwara, Misato Fukuen, Daisuke Kishio, Miyuki Sawashiro and Fumihiko Tachiki. 118 minutes. Colour. / Rushing to her first ...
Percy, Walker
(1916-1990) US doctor and author, whose first publications, beginning in 1954, were studies in language as a symbolic sign system (a line of thought that led him early into semiotics); his novels – the best known of which remains his first, The Moviegoer (1961) – reflect a searchingly liberal and Catholic reading of American life. Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World (1971), the first volume of the ...
Blommedaal, Laurens J
(1956- ) Dutch-born UK author whose The Desperado of the Metal (1991) follows the adventures of a Cyberpunk protagonist through a noir Near Future Britain on the brink of extinction. [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 ...