SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 20 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 ...
Gender
Discussion regarding gender has largely focused on women: this encyclopedia has an entry for Women in SF but not one for men. This focus can be partly attributed to the drive of Feminism to explore emancipation from the oppression of men. There have been many Utopian depictions of one gender societies in which women thrive. Though authors also depict worlds in which men dominate, these are usually treated ...
Hendow, Z S
(? -? ) UK author of a short Utopia, The Future Power; Or, the Great Revolution of 190- (1897 chap), in which a Great Strike, in which the army joins, ensures an economically secure world. [JC]
Wizard
US standard-size perfect-bound Media Magazine printed on newsprint to issue #7 and glossy paper thereafter. Publisher: Wizard Entertainment. Editors: Brian Cunningham to 2008, then Mike Cotton. 235 issues, July 1991 to January 2011. Publication schedule: monthly. / The most successful US publication devoted to Comics, at least in terms of circulation, which exceeded 100,000 copies at the height of its success in the mid-1990s. ...
Master Mystery, The
US silent Serial Film (1918-1919). Rolfe Photoplays. Directed by Harry Grossman and Burton L King. Written by Arthur B Reeve and Charles Logue. Cast includes Floyd Buckley, Jack Burns, Charles E Graham, Harry Houdini, Marguerite Marsh, William Pike and Ruth Stonehouse. 15 episodes; total runtime 238 minutes. Black and white. / International Patents Inc obtains the sole rights to ...
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 ...