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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 ...
Butler, Robert Olen
(1945- ) US author, much of whose work intensively capitalizes on his experience in the American Army Military Intelligence in Vietnam 1969 to 1972, when he learned to speak Vietnamese. Countrymen of Bones (1983) offers, just short of literal Fantastika, some analogies between an archaeological mystery and nuclear tests. The Christopher Marlowe Cobb sequence, depicting the adventures of a secret agent up to and into ...
Greenwald, Harry J
Author (? - ) whose one sf novel for Robert Hale Limited is Chinaman's Chance (1981), a Near Future thriller in which a UK Scientist and a Chinese colleague create a new tuber plant called the Winged Bean, a source of both cheap protein with the potential to end Third World famine and combustible fuel which as a ...
Flying Saucer Daffy
Short US film (1958). Columbia Pictures. Directed by Jules White. Written by Jack White (screenplay) and Warren Wilson (story). Cast includes Joe Besser, Gail Bonney, Diana Darrin, Larry Fine, Moe Howard Bek Nelson, and Emil Sitka. Seventeen minutes. Black and white. / After Joe (Besser) accidentally photographs a paper plate tossed into the sky, the other members of the Three Stooges, Moe (Howard) and Larry (Fine), take credit for the photograph and are given a $10,000 prize for ...
Field of Dreams
US movie (1989). Universal/Gordon. Directed by Phil Alden Robinson; producers Charles Gordon, Lawrence Gordon; executive producer Brian Frankish. Written by Robinson. Based on Shoeless Joe (1982) by W P Kinsella. Cast includes Dwier Brown, Timothy Busfield (Mark), Kevin Costner, Gaby Hoffman, James Earl Jones, Burt Lancaster, Ray Liotta, Amy Madigan (Annie Kinsella) and Frank Whaley. 106 minutes. Colour. / Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella ...
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 ...