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Tuesday 20 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: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
Sale, David
(1932- ) UK-born author, television screenwriter and producer, born Ernest Swindells, in Australia for many years since emigrating in 1950; he remains best known for creating and producing in Australia The Mavis Bramston Show (1964-1968), a Satirical review. His first novel, Come to Mother (1971), which is set in the Near Future, traces the consequences of the re-awakening of a woman ...
Cassidy, James
Pseudonym of UK author Edith Mary Steane (1861-1942), who produced several Anthologies under her own name, and, as Cassidy, The Gift of Life (1897), featuring a substance known as "life-lymph" which, when patients are inoculated with it, seems vastly to increase their resistance to death (see Immortality). [JC]
Buchholz, Matthew
(? -? ) US artist and author, initially sf interest for Alternate Histories of the World (graph 2013), a fantasticated chronological sequence of images taken from various historical (or quasi-historical) events, each of them textually and visually estranged into Alternate History understandings of the events in question. Sometimes the estrangements read as sf, sometimes as fantasy, sometimes as delusion, ...
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 ...