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Thursday 16 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 ...
Batchelor, John M
(? -? ) US author whose nonfantastic novel, A Strange Conflict (1888), is directly sequeled by A Strange People (1888), a Lost Race tale set in the depths of Mexico where tourists discover a hidden world inhabited by Robot (or robot-like) giants (see Great and Small). They are long-lived bronze Telepathic ...
X [tv]
Japanese animated tv series (2001-2002; vt X/1999). Madhouse. Based on the Manga by CLAMP. Directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Written by Yuki Enatsu. Voice cast includes Aya Hisakawa, Motoko Kumai, Houko Kuwashima, Mitsuaki Madono, Mamiko Noto, Junichi Suwabe and Kenichi Suzumura. 24 24-minute episode plus one OVA. Colour. / Tokyo, 1999: a final confrontation is imminent between two groups of ...
Satō Michiaki
(? - ) Japanese artist specializing in sf novel Illustration and Mecha design for Anime. A former member of Studio Nue (see Naoyuki Katō; Haruka Takachiho), he received the Seiun Award for art in 1987, in which period he was largely known ...
Federman, Raymond
(1928-2009) French-born author, in the US from 1947 until his death; his family died in Auschwitz. Much of his work combines experimental forms with some content readable as fantastic; the term "surfiction" has been applied to Federman's version of the postmodern sensibility (see Postmodernism and SF). Of this work, The Twofold Vibration (1982), does incorporate a Near Future ...
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 ...