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 ...
Neill, A S
(1883-1973) UK educationist, in active service during World War One, who gained fame for revolutionary theories about the teaching of children and who cofounded the International School – which operated initially on the Continent from 1921, then (from 1924) under the name Summerhill in the UK – to put them into practice. Fictionalized accounts like A Dominie's Log (1916) and its sequels popularized his arguments, and his ...
Daugherty, Michael
(1954- ). US experimental classical composer, with a pronounced interest in sf as well as more general pop culture. His early symphony Metropolis Symphony for Orchestra (1988-1993) is based on the Superman comics; UFO for Solo Percussion and Orchestra (1999) was inspired by the 1947 Roswell incident (see UFOs); and Time Machine (2003) is scored for three orchestras, ...
Undersea Kingdom
US Serial Film (1936). Republic Pictures. Directed by B Reeves Eason and Joseph Kane. Written by John Rathmell, Maurice Geraghty and Oliver Drake, based on a story by Tracy Knight and John Rathmell. Cast includes Lee Van Atta, Monte Blue, John Bradford, Ray "Crash" Corrigan, William Farnum, C Montague Shaw and Lois Wilde. 12 episodes, 226 minutes in total. Black and white. / Professor Norton's (Shaw) (see Scientists) new ...
Casey, Patrick
(1892-1941) US author, mostly of adventure stories, sometimes with genre shadings, as in "The Island of Lost Ones" (December 1936-?? 1937 Mystery Adventures). With his brother, Terence Casey (1895-1945), he wrote a Lost Race novel, The Strange Story of William Hyde (December 1915-March 1916 Adventure Magazine; 1916), featuring female descendants of the Khans; the explorer protagonist falls in love with the queen of the lost ...
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 ...