SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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 ...
Strete, Nara
(? - ) US artist and author of Starship of Fools (2022), a comic sf novel (see Humour) set initially in a modestly topsy-turvy Ruritanian kingdom, but mostly on a Starship, captained by a comic princess and her zany crew (see Ship of Fools). There is some danger that they will succeed in their mission, which is to ...
Ready, William B
(1914-1981) Welsh librarian and author, in the US from 1948 as professional librarian at several universities, and in Canada from 1966 in the same capacity at McMaster University. His first story, "Barring the Weight" for Atlantic Monthly in 1948, was not sf, but several of the tales assembled in The Great Disciple, and Other Stories (coll 1951) are of interest. He was best known, however, for his early study of J R R Tolkien, ...
Escargots, Les
["The Snails"] French animated film (1966). Société des Film d'Art et de Culture. Directed by René Laloux. Written by Roland Topor and René Laloux. 11 minutes. Colour. / This excellent, wordless short is in a very different style to Laloux and Topor's feature-length collaboration, La Planète Sauvage (1973). A farmer is unable to make his crops grow until he discovers ...
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 ...