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 ...
Plokta
UK Fanzine (1996-2011). The name is a computer acronym, "Press Lots Of Keys To Abort"; the fanzine, subtitled "The Journal of Superfluous Technology", was edited and published by the "Plokta Cabal" comprising Alison Scott, Steve Davies, Mike Scott alias Dr Plokta, Sue Mason, Giulia de Cesare, Steven Cain and – more recently – Marianne Cain, Jonathan Cain, and Flick Christian. There were 41 issues from May 1996 to April 2011. / Originally A4 format but ...
Dead Hand
Russian CGI animated web series (2013-2016). Directed by Dima Fedotov. Written by Sergey and Dima Fedotov. Two episodes. Colour. / The first episode, the three-minute Fortress, announces that it is "10 years from beginning of last war" (see World War Three). A plane resembling a futuristic descendant of a Superfortress Heavy Bomber is in flight: its Computer, unable to engage with ...
Justy
Japanese OVA (1985; vt Cosmo Police Justy). Studio Pierrot. Based on the Manga by Tsuguo Okazaki. Directed by Motosuke Takahashi. Written by Hiroyuki Hoshiyama. Voice cast includes Kazuhiko Inoue, Miina Tominaga and Keiko Yokozawa. 44 minutes. Colour. / Young Justy Kaizard (Inoue) is an Esper working for the Galaxy Control System's Cosmo Police (see ...
Lyons, Steve
(? - ) UK author, almost exclusively of Ties to various enterprises, primarily the Doctor Who universe, beginning with Doctor Who: New Adventures: Conundrum (1994) and Doctor Who: New Adventures: Head Games (1995), each part of a complicated Alternate History subset of tales known (perhaps unsurprisingly) as the ...
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 ...