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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
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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 ...
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 ...
Harry and the Hendersons
Film (1987; vt Bigfoot and the Hendersons UK). Amblin/Universal. Directed by William Dear. Written by Dear, William E Martin, Ezra D Rappaport. Cast includes Don Ameche, Melinda Dillon, Kevin Peter Hall, John Lithgow, Joshua Rudoy and David Suchet. 111 minutes. Colour. / This amiable, well-made film is sf only in that it deals with a Lost Race. Harry is a Bigfoot, an 8ft (2.4m) intelligent hairy anthropoid, a shy native of the US Northwest. He ...
Havens, Nicodemus
Pseudonym of an unidentified author (? -? ) writing in the character of a US workingman who, according to Max Page's The City's End: Two Centuries of Fantasies, Fears, and Premonitions of New York's Destruction (2008), may have produced the first tale to predict the destruction of New York. In ...
Perkins, Lucy Fitch
(1865-1937) US author of the loose Twins sequence of tales for older children, beginning with The Dutch Twins (1912). The various tales are linked by the fact that each features twins; there is no other continuity in the series. The only story with sf interest is The Cave Twins (1916), a fairly typical Prehistoric SF narrative whose twin protagonists are responsible for many culture-improving ...
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 ...