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 ...
Cowie, Donald
(1911-2006) UK author (blind since 1984), in New Zealand from 1928, in UK from 1934, resident in Switzerland from 1964, who has also written as Aldwyn Abberley, Julian Mountain, R F St B Pytchely and Rufus Stone; he was the author of several crabbed Future History visions of a century in decay. Prose & Verse (coll 1945) as with Julian Mountain contains some fantasy stories; of sf interest are ...
Cleopatra in Space
US animated tv series (2019-2021). DreamWorks Animation. Based on the graphic novels by Mike Maihack. Directors include Jayson Thiessen and Scooter Tidwell. Writers include Lindsay Kerns and Belinda King. Executive Producers include Doug Langdale. Voice cast includes Katie Crown, Jorge Diaz, Lilimar Hernandez, Jonathan Kite, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Kari Wahlgren. 26 21-minute episodes. Colour. / In Ancient Egypt the teenaged Cleopatra VII ...
Jameson, Hanna
(circa 1990- ) UK author, initially of the nonfantastic London Underground series of loosely connected noir thrillers beginning with Something You Are (2012) [this series is not listed below]. Jameson is of sf interest for her fourth novel, The Last (2019), set in Near Future Switzerland after what looks like World War Three has begun, destroying civilization. ...
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 ...