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.
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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 ...
Christchild, Ravan
(1938- ) Pseudonymous US teacher and author (later a vicar) resident in the UK from 1971; his only sf book, The Agonies of Time (stories January-March 1977 Vortex; coll of linked stories 1989), comprises three tales, featuring Steve Mitchell, which utilize Time-Travel tropes to examine extreme psychological states. The twentieth century is seen, in terms reminiscent of Michael ...
All-New Super Friends Hour, The
Animated tv series (1977-1978; vt Super Friends II). Hanna-Barbera Productions for ABC-TV. Executive Producers: William Hanna, Joseph Barbera. Creative Producer: Iwo Takamoto. Directed by Charles A Nichols. Writers included Willie Gilbert, Elena Lesser, Orville H Hampton, Duane Poole, others. Cast includes Norman Alden, Jack Angle, Michael Bell, Danny Dark, Shannon Farnum, Buster Jones, Casey Kasem, Michael Rye, Olan Soule and Liberty Williams. ...
Asteroids
The asteroids (or minor planets) mostly lie between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The first to be discovered was Ceres, identified by Giuseppe Piazzi (1746-1826) in 1801; three more, including Vesta and Pallas, were discovered in the same decade, and hundreds of thousands have now been catalogued. Only a few are over 150 km (100 miles) in diameter, the largest – Ceres, classified since 2006 as a dwarf planet rather than an asteroid ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...