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 ...
McGuire, John J
(1917-1981) US author best known for his collaborations with H Beam Piper on the sf action novel Crisis in 2140 (February-March 1953 Astounding as "Null-ABC"; 1957) and on A Planet for Texans (March 1957 Fantastic Universe as "Lone Star Planet"; 1958), Planetary Romance in the form of a Western set on New ...
Rolfe, Frederick
(1860-1913) UK author and eccentric, known as much for claiming the name Baron Corvo as for his writing. The nine Reviews of Unwritten Books (February-June 1903 The Monthly Review; plus one added piece December 1904 Gentleman's Magazine; coll 1985-1988 4vols each chap) with Sholto Douglas are an early articulation of the concept of Alternate History, if only in a nonfiction format (one of the reviews, for instance, being of ...
Coleman, Loren
(1947- ) US author whose works run a Fortean (see Charles Fort) gamut from cryptozoology to UFO studies. He is listed here primarily to distinguish him from his near-namesake, Loren L Coleman. [JC]
Murphy, Brian
(1973- ) US editor (in healthcare publishing) and enthusiast of Robert E Howard's Conan character, of J R R Tolkien, and of Heroic Fantasy in general; active in various Fanzines and online venues since 2007. An early print appearance was the essay "The Unnatural City" in The Cimmerian for April 2008. He has published a ...
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 ...