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 ...
Benson, E F
(1867-1940) UK author, brother of A C Benson and Robert Hugh Benson, and by far the most prolific of the three as far as fiction is concerned, with dozens of attractive, realistic novels and romances to his credit, and a number of novels involving the supernatural. The most telling of these is perhaps his first in this mode, The Judgment Books (1895), which shows the influence of Oscar ...
Laws
Certain "laws", principles or guidelines relevant to sf have become known by their authors' names, and the following examples have separate entries in this encyclopedia: Isaac Asimov's well-known Laws of Robotics, Clarke's Laws of Futures Studies as formulated by Arthur C Clarke, and ...
Blue Thunder
Film (1983). Rastar/Gordon Carroll Productions. Directed John Badham. Written by Dan O'Bannon, Don Jakoby. Cast includes Candy Clark, Malcolm McDowell, Warren Oates, Roy Scheider and Daniel Stern. 110 minutes. Colour. / Borderline sf set in a very Near-Future Los Angeles, Blue Thunder tells the story of Murphy (Scheider), a helicopter-based police officer, asked to try out a new supercopter: it can see through ...
McKean, Dave
Working name of British artist David Jeff McKean (1963- ), primarily known for his work in Comics and Graphic Novels, though he has also painted book covers and engaged in other activities. After attending Berkshire College of Art and Design from 1982 to 1986, McKean visited New York to seek work in the comics field and met Neil Gaiman, forming a friendship that would be central ...
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 ...