SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 24 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 ...
Starhawk
Pseudonym of US activist and author Miriam Simos (1951- ), perhaps best known for the nonfiction The Spiral Dance (1979), a Neopagan advocacy of a Religion based on the Goddess. The first volume of her Walking to Mercury sequence, comprising The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993) and Walking to Mercury (1997), is of strong sf interest. Set in the distant Near Future, its ...
Abraham, Daniel
(1969- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Mixing Rebecca" for The Silver Web, issue 13 1996, and whose first solo novel A Shadow in Summer (2006) – opening The Long Price Quartet – is fantasy, like most of his work. As M L N Hanover he wrote the Black Sun's Daughter sequence of noir Urban Fantasies [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under ...
More, Sir Thomas
(1478-1535) UK amateur actor, translator (of Lucian and others), lawyer, diplomat, politician and author. The son of a barrister, he was first educated for the Church, but soon decided upon a secular career. His legal training involved arguing both sides of any issue, a technique that would reappear in much of his writing, especially in Part 1 of Utopia. He advanced rapidly in public office, becoming both a Member of Parliament and Under-Sherriff of London in ...
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 ...