SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 23 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 19 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 ...
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 ...
Tales of the Unanticipated
US letter-size Semiprozine, known affectionately as ToTU, which was originally published by the Minnesota Science Fiction Society from Fall 1986, but became an independent magazine from issue #24 (July 2003). It has been edited throughout by Eric M Heideman. For the first eighteen issues it appeared at the rate of roughly three issues every two years; the schedule became annual from August 1998, switching to a slightly smaller, near-standard format (9.75 x ...
Powell, Gerald
Working name of UK author William Gerald Howell Powell Edwards (1891-1955), in active service during World War One. His All Things New (1926) is a Scientific Romance in which a Scientist, through the power of his Inventions, successfully ends all War. [JC]
Robert, Katee
(1987- ) US author, almost exclusively of fantasy with romance elements; they also write as by Kat Taylor [these titles are not listed below]. Robert is of sf interest for the Dark Olympus sequence beginning with Neon Gods (2021), set in an abstractly distant-Near-Future Dystopian City where it is possible to channel Avatars of Greek ...
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 ...