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 ...
UFO
UK tv series (1970-1973). Century 21 Pictures Ltd Production/ITC. Created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson with Reg Hill. Executive producer Gerry Anderson. Produced by Reg Hill. Script editor Tony Barwick. Directors included Anderson, David Tomblin, Alan Perry, Dave Lane, Ken Turner. Writers included Barwick and Tomblin. Special effects Derek Meddings. 26 50-minute episodes. Colour. / Before this series the ...
Brillantes, Gregorio C
(1932-2025) Phillipine journalist, essayist and author, highly regarded as an influential voice in English-language Phillipine fiction, who began to publish work of genre interest with The Distance to Andromeda and Other Stories (coll 1960). The title story of The Apollo Centennial: Nostalgias, Predicaments & Celebrations (coll 1980), an Alternate History in which the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship took a different course, has ...
Caunter, C F
(1899-1988) UK aviator (he was a pilot with the Royal Air force in World War One), scholar and author of popular engineering texts from 1920; he also worked as an electrical engineer. The distressed protagonist of his one published sf novel, Madness Opens the Door (1932), is taken via Matter Transmitter first to the Moon and thence through interstellar space to an entirely new ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...