SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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.
Site updated on 14 April 2026
Sponsor of the day: Conversation 2023
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 ...
Caine, William
(1873-1923) UK author, almost invariably of spoofish light fiction and plays. Of greatest sf interest is The Confectioners (1906) with John Fairbairn, a Scientific Romance set in a UK transformed by the near-future Invention of a substance capable of taking any shape and function, and by the unrest this substance causes when an unscrupulous industrial magnate tries to corner its use. The narrative is conveyed ...
Hulbert, Archer Butler
(1873-1933) US academic, historian and author, whose Lost World tale, The Queen of Quelparte: A Story of Russian Intrigue in the Far East (1904), is set on the eponymous Island between Japan and China, where intrigues invoking ancient ways are required to save the land from imperial predators. [JC]
Silver Streak Comics
US Comic (1939-1942; 1946). Your Guide Publications Inc, New Friday Publications Inc, Comic House Inc. 23 issues. Artists include Jack Binder, Dick Briefer, Don Rico and Bob Wood. Script writers include Otto Binder (see Eando Binder), Dick Briefer, Leslie Charteris, Carl Formes, Don Rico and Dick Wood. 68 pages per issue (fewer in #22 and #23), usually with 7-9 long ...
Aspler, Tony
(1939- ) UK-born wine journalist and author, in Canada from 1970; of sf interest among his several novels is Chain Reaction (1978) with Gordon Pape, which concerns the Near Future assassination of a Canadian politician that threatens an American Invasion of Canada as well as World War Three. [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 ...