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 ...
Lamszus, Wilhelm
(1881-1965) German educator and author, immediately dismissed from his teaching post when the Nazi regime took over, presumably because of his anti-war writings, including Das Menschenschlachthaus: Bilder von kommenden Krieg (1912; trans Oakley Williams as The Human Slaughter-House (Scenes from the War That Is Sure to Come) 1913 UK) with a sympathetic introduction by Alfred Noyes; it comprises a ...
Scanlon, Mitchel
(? - ) Welsh author who has focused mainly on Ties, initially and primarily for the Warhammer Wargame universe, beginning with "Red Reward" in Inferno for July-August 2003, a Warhammer 40,000 tale; his contribution to the Horus Heresy sub-sequence, Descent of Angels (2007), interestingly focuses on the eponymous colony planet after a ...
Gordon, Bert I
(1922-2023) US filmmaker who typically directed, produced, co-wrote, and did the special effects for his low-budget productions in collaboration with Flora May Gordon (1925-2016) during their marriage (1945-1979). After serving in World War Two and making some Television commercials, he began his film career with King Dinosaur (1955), a generally dire saga of the discovery of living Dinosaurs ...
Tilley, Robert J
(? - ) UK jazz musician, graphic designer and author, who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Devil and Mr Wooller" in Ellory Queen's Mystery Magazine for September 1955; almost all his short work appeared by 1972, and was assembled as The Dark Corners: Fantastic Crime Stories (coll 2014) and Something Else: The Best Science Fiction Stories of Robert J Tilley (coll 2015). His stories are crisply told, ...
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 ...