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Wednesday 22 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 ...
Butler, Andrew M
(? - ) UK academic and critic whose PhD from the University of Hull was published as Ontology and Ethics in the Writings of Philip K. Dick (1995); he returned to Philip K Dick with The Pocket Essential Philip K. Dick (2000), the first of several books he wrote in the Pocket Essentials series of short introductions. / Though his academic interests include various aspects of critical ...
Faust, Minister
Pseudonym of Canadian radio host (most famously of Terrordome, a news/comment programme focusing on issues affecting Black Canadians), politician, controversialist and author Malcolm Azania (1969- ) whose first novel, The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad (2004), combines Recursive SF elements with material also taken from fantasy and horror – some of this material being derived from books, but much of ...
Buggles
Also known as The Buggles. A UK synth-pop band comprising Trevor Horn (1949- ) and Geoff Downes (1952- ); active from 1977. Masters of bright and electro-pop that both mourned the passing of the old world and celebrated the colourful and plastic near-future, The Buggles had a career that was appropriately shiny and transient. Their first single "Video Killed the Radio Star" (1979) was a number #1 hit; and the rush-released album, ...
Post-Holocaust
A blanket item of Terminology used in this encyclopedia to deal with stories set in the aftermath of catastrophe, whether the upheaval is a natural Disaster or a human- or Alien-caused Holocaust or an incurable Pandemic. In the longer term, as generations pass and memories of the actual catastrophe fade and blur, post-holocaust settings merge ...
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 ...