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
Sponsor of the day: Ted Chiang
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 ...
Rose, Stephen
(1936- ) US author and teacher who with his wife Lois Rose wrote The Shattered Ring: Science Fiction and the Quest for Meaning (1970), an early critical study (see Critical and Historical Works About SF) which examines sf in terms of Mythology and Christian Religion. Authors discussed include Isaac Asimov, ...
Johnson, E A
(1860-1944) US author, who may have changed his middle name from Austin to Augustus after gaining his freedom (Austin probably being the name of his owner); in his little-known Utopia, Light Ahead for the Negro (1904), set a century hence, the South is segregated in favour of Blacks. Johnson, who was African American, also wrote histories of Black life in America, and a work of Anthropology, ...
Albania
There has been some sf in Albanian since the late 1960s, but not until 1978 was the first sf book published there. By 1991 there had been about a dozen, of which five were by Thanas Qerama, a prolific writer and also an editor of juvenile science magazines; examples are Roboti i pabindur ["Disobedient Robot"] (coll 1981), Një javë në vitin 2044 ["One Week in the Year 2044"] (1982) and Misteri i tempullit të lashtë ["Mystery of the Old ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...