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 ...
Star Trek [film]
Film (2009). Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment present a Bad Robot/MavroCine Pictures production. Directed by J J Abrams. Written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman, based on the television series created by Gene Roddenberry. Cast includes Eric Bana, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Chris Hemsworth, Leonard Nimoy, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban and Anton Yelchin. 127 minutes. ...
Santo the Silver Mask vs The Martian Invasion
Mexican film (1967). Original title Santo el Enmascarado de Plata vs "La Invasión de los Marcianos"; vt Santo the Silver-Masked Man vs The Martian Invasion. Producciones Cinematográficas. Directed by Alfredo B Crevenna. Written by Rafael García Travesi. Cast includes El Santo, Wolf Ruvinskis and Manuel Zozaya. 92 minutes. Black and white. / Over scenes of astronauts orbiting the Earth, the narrator wonders: "Is our planet ...
Mars, Alastair
(1915-1985) Canadian-born soldier and author, in the UK from infancy, in the Navy from 1932; he became well known for the 1952 court martial that ended his military career (in the midst of a dispute regarding his penury at naval rates of pay, he had refused to report for duty); his last rank was lieutenant commander. After 1952, he published several novels that drew on his intimate knowledge of submarines at war Under the Sea (he had been commander of ...
Russell, G Warren
(1854-1937) UK-born journalist, publisher, politician and author, in New Zealand by 1865, now remembered primarily for his controversial role in the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, when as the government minister responsible he (correctly) allowed a passenger liner to dock in Auckland, an action which (incorrectly) was thought to have deepened the medical crisis. His only novel, A New Heaven (written circa 1902; 1919), is a Utopia set in a ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...