SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 22 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 ...
Airplane Boys
The Wright Brothers' first successful heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk in December 1903 signalled the inevitable death of the Airship Boys subgenre of boys' adventure series before it properly began. Tales involving juvenile chums creating and/or piloting lighter-than-air craft, almost always dirigible Balloons, did not in fact come into the market until Harry Lincoln Sayler published the ...
Dyer, Wayne, Dr
(1940-2015) US medical doctor, motivational speaker and author of nonfiction texts like Your Erroneous Zones (1976), and of one sf novel, Gifts from Eykis: A Story of Self-Discovery (1983), in which an Alien makes First Contact with humans on this planet, and attempts (successfully) to persuade humans to live fuller lives. [JC]
Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer
Japanese animated film (1984). Kitty Films, Pierrot. Directed and written by Mamoru Oshii. Voice cast includes Takuya Fujioka, Toshio Furukawa, Fumi Hirano, Michihiro Ikemizu, Akira Kamiya, Saeko Shimazu and Machiko Washio. 99 minutes. Colour. / The second of the six films made as part of the Urusei Yatsura franchise, based on the Manga by Rumiko ...
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 ...