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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 ...
Hazzard, Wilton
An occasional House Name of the Fiction House Magazines, used chiefly for sports-related fiction. One sf story by Margaret St Clair appeared as by Hazzard: "The Dancers" (January 1952 Planet Stories). Other instances of this byline include two reprinted sports stories by Nelson Bond. [MA/SH/DRL]
Throssell, Ric
Working name of Australian diplomat, actor, playwright and author Richard Prichard Throssell (1922-1999), who during much of his career suffered from Cold War suspicions and Paranoia, a McCarthy-like persecution caused almost entirely by his remaining in contact with his leftwing family; his mother, the author Katharine Susannah Prichard (1883-1969), was a founding member of the Communist Party of Australia. Of sf interest is a ...
Doppelgangers
Literally, "double-walkers". Very broadly, doppelgangers begin to make significant appearances in the early nineteenth century, in the works of authors like E T A Hoffmann, whose use of these figures was central to the concept of the Uncanny (or Unheimlich) in the works of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) (see also Mysterious Stranger). To meet one's own supernatural double (or Scots "fetch") was traditionally an unlucky ...
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 ...