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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 ...
Martin, Peter
(? - ) A name long thought to have been the working name of UK author Peter Martin Leckie; but members of Leckie's family have stated that Peter Martin Leckie was not this Peter Martin. The name was used for the sf novel, Summer in Three Thousand: Not a Prophecy – A Parable (1946), in which a progressive Utopian World Island state is contrasted with a war-torn conservative ...
Gilmour, William
(? - ) US author who has specialized in pastiches of the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs, including Lost on Jupiter (1962 chap), Tarzan and the Lightning Man (1963 chap) (see Tarzan) and Back to the Earth's Core (1971). More recently, in The Undying Land (1985), he competently pastiched the style of 1920s fantastic adventure- ...
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
US tv series (2008-2009). Created by Josh Friedman. Producers include Friedman, Mario Kassar, Joel B Michaels, and James Middleton. Directors include Charles Beeson, Jeffrey G Hunt, and David Nutter. Writers include Friedman, Denise Thé, Natalie Chaidez, and Ashley Miller. Cast includes Lena Headey as Sarah Connor, Thomas Dekker as John Connor, Richard T Jones as James Ellison, Garret Dillahunt as Cromartie/John Henry, Summer Glau as Cameron Phillips, Brian Austin Green as Derek ...
Santo the Silver Mask vs The Martian Invasion
Mexican film (1967). Original title Santo el Enmascarado de Plata vs "La Invasión de los Marcianos"; vt Santo the Silver-Masked Man vs The Martian Invasion. Producciones Cinematográficas. Directed by Alfredo B Crevenna. Written by Rafael García Travesi. Cast includes El Santo, Wolf Ruvinskis and Manuel Zozaya. 92 minutes. Black and white. / Over scenes of astronauts orbiting the Earth, the narrator wonders: "Is our planet ...
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 ...