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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 ...
Niffenegger, Audrey
(1963- ) US artist and author whose first full-length prose fiction, The Time-Traveler's Wife (2003), which was filmed as The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) and later made into a Television series as The Time Traveler's Wife (2022 6 episodes) by showrunner Steven Moffat, carries its protagonist willy-nilly through a number of ...
Dinosaurus!
Film (1960). Fairview Productions. Produced by Jack H Harris. Directed by Irvin S Yeaworth. Dinosaur animation by Tim Baar, Wah Chang. Dinosaur models designed by Marcel Delgado. Written by Dan E Weisbud, Jean Yeaworth from an original idea by Harris. Cast includes Kristina Hanson, Paul Lukather (Chuck), Gregg Martell, Ward Ramsey and Alan Roberts. 85 minutes. Colour. / Bart Thompson (Ramsey) is in charge of a construction crew working on an unnamed Caribbean ...
Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle's famous hero Sherlock Holmes (see Icons) was introduced as a scientific detective operating by rigorous logic – but Doyle's master-stroke was to show him through the eyes of his staunch but uncomprehending companion Doctor Watson, providing a human frame for what might have been an arid inspiration. Although Holmes stories did not always fully honour this template description, Holmes himself soon ...
Novae Terrae
UK Fanzine initially edited by Maurice K Hanson (see below for later changes). 33 issues, March 1936 to January 1939. / Novae Terrae was the earliest true fanzine in the UK. Maurice K Hanson first edited it for the Nuneaton chapter of the Science Fiction League, with his friend D R Smith a columnist from #2 (April 1936); and then, from #10 (February 1937), for the pre-World War Two ...
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 ...