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Friday 23 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.
Site updated on 19 January 2026
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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 ...
Zombies of the Stratosphere
US Serial Film (1952; vt Satan's Satellites). Republic Pictures. Produced by Franklin Andreon. Directed by Fred C Brannon. Written by Ronald Davidson. Cast includes Lane Bradford, Judd Holdren, Leonard Nimoy, Aline Towne and Wilson Wood. 12 episodes. 167 minutes. Black and white. / Marex (Bradford) and Nareb (Nimoy), humanoid-appearing Aliens from Mars, arrive on Earth and make preparations to ...
Miller, P Schuyler
(1912-1974) US critic, amateur archaeologist and author; an MSc in chemistry, he did research for a time and from 1952 until his death worked as a technical writer. He remains best known in the sf world for his book reviews in Astounding Science-Fiction, which first appeared in 1945 and became a regular monthly feature in October 1951 under a surtitle, The Reference Library, and continued until his death, the last instalment appearing in January 1975. He was not ...
Hicks, Granville
(1901-1982) US author, editor and broadcaster, most of whose significant work lay in the field of cultural studies, initially from a Communist standpoint; although by 1939 he had become disillusioned with Soviet communism, he retained a Marxist orientation in his work. His first novel, The First to Awaken (1940) with Richard M Bennett – Bennett illustrated the book and provided ideas, but did not collaborate in the writing – was a ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...