SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 15 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 ...
John, Owen
(1918-1995) UK author, mostly of spy thrillers, whose Computer Takes All (1967) as by John Bourne visualizes a Dystopian outcome to the rise of the Computer; and whose Haggai Godin sequence sometimes comes close to sf, especially The Shadow in the Sea (1972), which ventures into Near Future territory in its description of a mysterious Russian submarine off the British ...
Janusz A Zajdel Award
Polish Award for Fantastika chosen by Fandom. This was founded in 1984 at Polcon, the Polish national Convention, and initially named Sfinks, to be presented for literary achievements in the field of sf (later also Fantasy) in the preceding calendar year, so the first award for the year 1984 would be given at the 1985 ...
Cline, C Terry, Jr
(1935- ) US author, most of whose work combines thriller and Horror in SF modes; he has published three borderline-sf novels – Damon (1975), about Mutant superchildren, Death Knell (1977), which deals interestingly with Reincarnation, and Cross Current (1979) – and one sf tale, Mindreader (1981), whose ...
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 ...