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
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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 ...
Berkeley, Reginald
(1890-1935) UK soldier, politician – Liberal Member of Parliament 1922-1924 – playwright and author in various genres, in active service during World War One. Apparently inadvertently, he created one of the lasting myths of the conflict in his novel about the German execution of Edith Cavell, Dawn: A Biographical Novel of Edith Cavell (1928), in which a German soldier named Rammler refuses to participate in the firing squad, and is ...
Bagnall-Stubbs, James
(1878-1955) UK author who served in World War One, and who was responsible for two novels containing sf elements of interest: in Ora Pro Nobis (1899), a spirit journey is undertaken to another planet, where human-like beings live in peace; and in The Order of Isis: A Story of Mystery and Adventure in Egypt (1900), occult chemists in the eponymous order create a vapour capable of enabling eavesdropping at a distance. [JC/MA]
Brackett, Leigh
(1915-1978) US scriptwriter and author, for most of her career deeply involved in the writing of fantasy and sf, for which she perhaps remains best known, though her detective novels and her 16 film and television scenarios have been justly praised. Her film work includes screenplays for The Vampire's Ghost (1945) and The Long Goodbye (1973); and for Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep (1946) and Rio Bravo (1958), novelizing her own script as ...
Omega
Hungarian prog-rock band, reputedly the most successful rock act in Hungarian history. Their international success owes something to their habit of releasing both Hungarian- and English-language versions of their studio albums; although the heavily accented and sometimes unidiomatic vocal expression on the latter detract from the effectiveness of the whole. Időrabló (1976), re-recorded in English and released as Time Robber (1977) touches, in its lengthy ...
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 ...