SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
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 ...
Stern, Dave
(1958- ) US author almost exclusively as a contributor of Ties to various series universes, including some associated with Marvel Comics and Star Trek, the first of these being Dr Bones #5: Nightmare World (1989), part of a Shared World series about the eponymous archaeologist/adventurer in space, clearly influenced by Stephen ...
Doctor Who
UK tv series (1963-current). BBC TV. Created by Sydney Newman, Donald Wilson. First-season producer Verity Lambert, story editor David Whitaker; the Doctor played by William Hartnell, November 1963-October 1966; see below for his many successors. Theme music by Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. 26 seasons ...
Sterling, Michelle Min
(? - ) Canadian academic and author, now in the US, whose first novel, Camp Zero (2023), is set in a Near Future America devastated by Climate Change; unbearable heat inland has led to the construction of Dystopian Keep-like oceanside gated communities or polders (see ...
Winchester, Clarence
(1895-1981) UK editor, journalist, poet and author, several of whose edited volumes, mostly about the world of the air, have remained known, including in particular Wonders of World Aviation (15 March-December 1938 Amalgamated Press in 40 parts; 1938 2vols) where, for almost the last time before World War Two ended that dream, it could be assumed that a worldwide Pax Aeronautica was just around 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 ...