SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 21 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 ...
Niall, Ian
Pseudonym of Scottish author John McNeillie (1916-2002), most famous for the nonfiction The Poacher's Handbook (1950). His sf novel, The Boy Who Saw Tomorrow (1952), offers a quiet portrait of the effect on a small village of a young lad's Predictions of the Near Future. [JC]
Tit-Bits Science-Fiction Library
A series of nineteen generally undistinguished sf paperback chapbooks published by C Arthur Pearson of London (see Pearson's Weekly) monthly from September 1953 to March 1955. All volumes ran to 64pp, were priced at 9d (nine old UK pence) and had cover paintings in vigorous Pulp mode by Ron Turner. A bibliographical oddity is that the books lack title or copyright pages; the series affiliation appears ...
Latham, William
(1964- ) US author of some belated Ties to the extinct Television series Space 1999, beginning with Space 1999: Resurrection (2002). [JC]
Scott, Josephine
(? - ) UK author of erotic novels, a few of which contain some sf elements, like Time of Her Life (1993) and A Slave in Time (2006), in both of which women in search of dominant male partners engage in Time Travel to satisfy their needs. [JC]
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 ...