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 ...
Lord of the Flies
1. Film (1963). Allen-Hogdon Productions/Two Arts. Directed by Peter Brook. Written by Brook, based on The Lord of the Flies (1954) by William Golding. Cast includes James Aubrey, Tom Chapin, Hugh Edwards and Roger Elwin. 91 minutes. Black and white. / Set in the Near Future, the film concerns a group of English schoolboys whose plane crash-lands on a remote island. With two exceptions the boys ...
Lensman [film]
Japanese animated film (1984; vt Lensman: Secret of the Lens). Original title SF Shinseiki Lensman. Based on E E Smith's Lensman series. Madhouse, MK Productions. Directed by Kazuyuki Hirokawa and Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Written by Sōji Yoshikawa. Voice cast includes Toshio Furukawa, Seizo Katou, Mami Koyama, Nachi Nozawa, Chikao Ohtsuka and Tadashi Yokouchi. 107 minutes. Colour. / ...
John W Campbell Award
Award for the best new sf or fantasy author, selected by votes of sf fans and invariably presented at the Worldcon as part of the Hugo ceremony. There is a two-year eligibility period: an author first published in 2000 would be eligible for the 2001 or 2002 award but not thereafter. Sponsored by Condé-Nast, publishers of Analog, the John W Campbell Award was instituted in 1972 in tribute to John W ...
Shufeldt, Ken
(? - ) US author of the Genesis sequence, comprising Genesis (2009) and Tribulations (2012). The many Genre SF Clichés found here include Alien Forerunners whose seed Uplifts the natives of Earth to Homo sapiens status; Telepathic ...
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 ...