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 ...
Sitwell, Osbert
(1892-1969) UK poet and author whose siblings, Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) and Sacheverell Sitwell, have gained modestly in esteem as against the posthumous fading of his reputation; though his own work was formally conventional, with his brother he was an influential proponent of Modernism, assembling more than one important exhibition. He was in active service throughout ...
Dixon, John
(1969- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Halves Interrupted" in Barbaric Yawp for December 1997; most of his work has been horror, including the Carl Freeman sequence beginning with Phoenix Island (2014). Of sf interest is The Point (2018), a Young Adult tale which unites tropes from the Space Cadet juveniles from the previous century and the ...
Mowll, Joshua
(1970- ) UK graphic artist and author of the Young Adult Guild of Specialists sequence, comprising Operation Red Jericho (2005), Operation Typhoon Shore (2006) and Operation Storm City (2008); set in the 1920s, the tales combine Lost Race and Steampunk conventions in a Ripping Yarns fashion that evokes comparisons to writers like ...
Gaspar, Enrique
(1842-1902) Spanish diplomat, playwright and author, initially of zarzuelas, comic operettas with spoken dialogue in the French manner. He is of sf interest for the book-length "El anacronópete" (in Novelas, coll 1887; trans Yolanda Molina-Gavilán and Andrea Bell as The Time Ship: A Chrononautical Journey 2012) which, although it is not the first text to posit something like Time Travel, seems to be the first to describe ...
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 ...