SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 20 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 ...
Graves, Robert
(1895-1985) UK poet, critic and author, C L Graves's nephew, best known for an active poetic career which began around 1911, before his active service in World War One and the war poems which established his reputation, and lasted until about 1975; and for such novels as the nonfantastic I, Claudius (1934). His tendentious claim that he wrote fiction solely for commercial reasons does little to explain the high ...
Kane, Wilson
A House Name used by Ziff-Davis on four stories 1958-1959 in Amazing and Fantastic; at least one, "Hungarian Rhapsody" (June 1958 Fantastic), was by Robert Bloch. [PN]
Land Unknown, The
Film (1957). Universal-International. Produced by William Alland. Directed by Virgil W Vogel. Written by Laszlo Gorog, William N Robson from a story by Charles Palmer. Cast includes Henry Brandon, Phil Harvey, Douglas Kennedy (Captain Burnham), Jock Mahoney, William Reynolds (Lt Jack Carmen) and Shawn Smith. 78 minutes. Black and white. / A US Navy expedition to Antarctica sets off to explore the warm-water lakes discovered in the late 1940s. Traveling by helicopter, Commander Harold ...
Queen, Ellery
Pseudonym used by US cousins Frederick Dannay (1905-1982) and Manfred B Lee (1905-1971) for a lengthy sequence of crime-fiction novels and short stories featuring amateur detective Ellery Queen, beginning with The Roman Hat Mystery (1929). For many years these were characterized by rigorously logical deductions and a "Challenge to the Reader" to solve the puzzle before the final explanation. Media spinoffs included the syndicated radio show ...
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 ...