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Wednesday 22 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 20 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 ...
Hamilton, Peter F
(1960- ) UK author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Bodywork" in Dream Magazine for September 1990. His first sale had actually been to Fear but this story, "Deathday", did not appear until the February 1991 issue. Though he is best known for his Space Operas – typically massive volumes arrayed in series – he has published several short stories of ...
Tracy, Louis
(1863-1928) Irish-born UK journalist and author, born Patrick Joseph Treacy, in UK from early childhood, active from the early 1880s. He almost certainly changed his name legally before 1888; his birth name and place of birth have been examined by Steve Holland in his Bear Alley blog [see links below]. Tracy is best remembered for The Final War: A Story of the Great Betrayal (28 December 1895-1 August 1896 ...
Memoirs of a Survivor
Film (1981). Memorial Films/National Film Finance Corporation/EMI. Directed by David Gladwell. Written by Kerry Crabbe, Gladwell, based on The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974) by Doris Lessing. Cast includes Julie Christie, Christopher Guard, Debbie Hutchings and Leonie Mellinger. 115 minutes. Colour. / Amid Near-Future scenes of urban squalor in Western London a middle-aged woman (Christie) observes (mostly ...
Scherm, Rebecca
(circa 1985- ) US author whose first novel, Unbecoming (2015), explores in nonfantastic terms conundrums of Identity. Her second novel, A House Between Earth and the Moon (2022), which is Near Future sf set mainly in a Space Station, uses the intensive Zone of this under-development luxury resort, which could also be ...
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 ...