SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 18 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 ...
Ebenbach, David
(1972- ) US academic, poet and author, active from around 2000; He began publishing work of genre interest with "Team Orderly Mars" in Not One of Us for October 2016, his earlier short stories, variously assembled, are nonfantastic. He is of sf interest for his third novel, How to Mars (early version May/June 2021 Analog; 2021), in which a cadre of scientists, on a publicity-shaped mission to Mars, ...
Millard, Joseph
(1908-1989) US author in several genres who began publishing sf with "The Crystal Invaders" in Thrilling Wonder Stories for January 1941, and was active in the field for a few years, a period which included the magazine release of his only novel, The Gods Hate Kansas (November 1941 Startling; rev 1964), a routine adventure involving manipulation of humans by Aliens. It was filmed, dreadfully, ...
Rios, Julia
(? - ) US writer and editor much involved in various podcasts starting with Outer Alliance which she hosted from 2010 to 2015. As well as currently co-hosting The Skiffy and Fanty Show podcast she has acted as a narrator for this and other online magazines. Between 2012 and 2015 she was senior fiction editor at Strange Horizons; from 2014 the poetry and reprints editor for the equally highly-regarded ...
Williams, Ian
(1948-2025) UK librarian, fan and author, active in Fandom from the early 1970s when he was a founder of the Newcastle fan group known as Gannetfandom (from the "Gannet" pub where they met) and edited the first two issues of the Fanzine Maya (1970 and 1971); his other fanzines included Chimera (1974-1980), Goblin's Grotto (1975-1976) and Siddhartha (1972-2010). An early work of sf interest is ...
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 ...