SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 17 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
Sponsor of the day: Ansible Editions
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 ...
Kent, Steven L
(1960- ) US author of the Clone Republic sequence of Military SF stories involving a society of Clone soldiers who find an overachieving human warrior, with a mind of his own, difficult to come to terms with; the series begins with The Clone Republic (2006), and is projected to continue indefinitely. [JC]
Lumley, Benjamin
(1811-1875) Canadian-born lawyer, entrepreneurial opera manager and author, who wrote at least once as Hermes; in UK from well before 1832, by which point he had permanently changed his surname from Levy. His career in opera, from 1842 to about 1863, was marked by some scandal (not unusual for the context) and his introduction of nearly thirty operas to Britain, including several by Giuseppe Verdi. His career as a novelist began late, with Sirenia; or, Recollections of a Past Existence ...
Parker, E Frank
(? - ) UK industrial research chemist, editor of the Fanzine Beyond, and author of a short Space Opera, Girl in Trouble (August 1943 Beyond as "The Stolen Spaceship"; 1944 chap). [JC]
Day the World Ended
Film (1955). Golden State Productions, American Releasing Corporation (see American International Pictures). Produced and directed by Roger Corman. Written by Lou Rusoff. Creatures designed by Paul Blaisdell. Cast includes Paul Birch, Paul Blaisdell (uncredited), Mike Connors (credited as Touch Connors), Richard Denning, Adele ...
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 ...