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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 ...
Bade, William L
(1928-2005) US academic, physicist (he did work for NASA) and author, who began publishing Hard SF with "Advent" in Astounding for January 1948, beginning the short Advent series of five tales ending with "The Eight Hundredth Hundred-Day" (Fall 1953 Fantastic Worlds). Besides this sequence he wrote three other stories, none remarkable. [JC]
Moore, Alan
(1953- ) UK Comics writer and illustrator, mainly active in the former capacity for the Graphic Novels that made him famous; all of these, including Watchmen, were illustrated by others. On initially relatively rare occasions, beginning with "Sawdust Memories" in Knave for December 1984, he has also written prose fiction, including the part-fantastic Voice of the Fire ...
Congress, The
French-Israeli live action/animated film (2013). Bridgit Folman Film Gang, Pandora Film. Directed and written by Ari Folman, based on Stanisław Lem's "Kongres Futurologiczny" (in Bezsenność, coll 1971; trans as The Futurological Congress 1974). Cast includes Danny Huston and Robin Wright. 122 minutes. Colour. / Miramount Studios has developed the Technology to scan bodies and ...
Mars, Sergio
(1976- ) Spanish author, critic, editor, publisher and translator, one of the best Hard SF writers in Spanish. He has published four sf and fantasy novels, four collections, an essay and about seventy short stories, some of them set in Tolkien's Middle-earth. He is quite popular in Spanish and Latin American sf magazines and anthologies, with dozens of collaborations in 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 ...