SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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
Sponsor of the day: Ansible Editions
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 ...
Mason, F Van Wyck
(1901-1978) US author, who sometimes gave his name variously as F V W Mason, Van Wyck Mason, Frank Van Wyck Mason and Frank W Mason, and who published as well under at least two pseudonyms, Geoffrey Coffin and Ward Weaver; in active service during World War One and World War Two. Though now best known as a writer of historical novels with an emphasis on romantic adventure plots, he was initially prolific in shorter forms, ...
Princess Mononoke
Japanese animated film (1997). Original title Mononoke Hime. Studio Ghibli. Directed and written by Hayao Miyazaki. Voice cast includes Yuriko Ishida, Yōji Matsuda, Akihiro Miwa, Sumi Shimamoto and Yūko Tanaka. 134 minutes. Colour. / In fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Japan, Prince Ashitaka (Matsuda) kills the maddened boar god (see Gods and Demons) attacking his ...
Fisher, Steve
Working name of US naval officer and author Steven Gould Fisher (1912-1980) who also wrote as by Grant Lane; he wrote fairly widely for the Pulp magazines, including several stories for Doc Savage beginning with "Flame in the Wind" (February 1937 Doc Savage). Destroyer (1941) is a Future War tale, published just prior to the American entry into ...
NoMan
US Comic (1966-1967). Tower Comics. 2 issues. Artists include Chic Stone, Ogden Whitney and Wally Wood. Scriptwriters include Steve Skeates. 68 pages, with five long strips each issue. This was one of the two spin-offs from the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents comic, the other being Dynamo (1966-1967). / Aged Scientist Doctor Dunn ...
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 ...