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Tuesday 13 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 12 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 ...
Dante Alighieri
(1265-1321) Italian poet, one of the five central fathers of the European literary tradition after the fall of Rome, along with Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), François Rabelais, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) and William Shakespeare; known primarily for the Commedia (begun circa 1300, mostly written 1313-1321; 1472 as La Comedia di Dante Alleghieri; vt ...
Talbot, Hake
Pseudonym of US author Henning Cunningham Nelms (1900-1986) who as Henning Nelms wrote nonfiction works on theatrical design and stage magic; his Rim of the Pit (1944) is an impossible crime tale whose solution utilizes an sf premise. [JC]
Bell, Joseph
(1949- ) Canadian bibliographer, publisher and editor specializing in studies of H P Lovecraft and other weird fiction, initially in the Bibliography Howard Phillips Lovecraft: The Books 1915-1981 (1981 chap), which was followed by further titles in the Howard Phillips Lovecraft: The Books sequence [see Checklist below] to 1987. This time period also saw the Lovecraft-focused ...
Bolton, Charles E
(1841-1901) US businessman, philanthropist and author, married to the poet and writer on temperance issues, Sarah Knowles Bolton (1841-1916); his posthumously published sf novel, The Harris-Ingram Experiment (1905), conflates capitalist accomplishments, romantic love, a genius inventor and Utopian experiments. [JC]
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...