SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 22 January 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.
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von Däniken, Erich
(1935-2026) Swiss author of a series of purportedly nonfiction books, beginning with Erinnerungen an die Zukunft (1968; trans Michael Heron as Chariots of the Gods? 1969), which, based on a mass of often suspect and internally inconsistent data, argues that the Earth was visited by at least one Alien spacefaring race before and at the dawn of historical time; thus, for example, the Great Pyramid of ...
Adams, Scott
(1957-2026) US author and cartoonist best known for the Dilbert strip published from 1989, which when at its best superbly (in terms of concept and accuracy of Satire rather than quality of drawing) satirized contemporary office life and corporate incompetence. As with most ambitious modern comic strips, it segues frequently into sf and fantasy tropes – such as Robot office workers, wish-fulfilling ...
Phantasm
Film (1978). New Breed. Directed, produced, written and photographed by Don Coscarelli. Cast includes Michael Baldwin, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm and Bill Thornbury. 90 minutes, cut to 89 minutes. Colour. / At the independent, low-budget, exploitation end of the movie market, small miracles sometimes occur that could not take place inside a major studio. Phantasm is one such, a spirited blend of Horror, surrealism and sf, in which the ...
O'Neill, Joseph
(1878-1952) Irish educationist and author, active from around 1905; Permanent Secretary to the Department of Education, Irish Free State, 1923-1944. His first book, The Kingdom-Maker: A Verse Play in Five Acts (1917) as by Seósamh O'Neill, is a drama about the founding of Ireland featuring somewhat fantasticated Firbolgs. He was the author of three novels of sf interest, though Wind from the North (1934) is only marginally fantastic, its narrator passing ...
Ducornet, Rikki
Working name of US illustrator and author Erica Ducornet (1943- ), resident in various countries, including for a considerable time Canada, now in US; she began to publish work of genre interest with "Aunt Rose & Uncle Freidle" in Other Times for November 1975/January 1976. Included in her graphic work is a set of abstracted drawings for Robert Coover's Spanking the Maid (1981 chap); she ...
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 ...