SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 15 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 ...
Throssell, Ric
Working name of Australian diplomat, actor, playwright and author Richard Prichard Throssell (1922-1999), who during much of his career suffered from Cold War suspicions and Paranoia, a McCarthy-like persecution caused almost entirely by his remaining in contact with his leftwing family; his mother, the author Katharine Susannah Prichard (1883-1969), was a founding member of the Communist Party of Australia. Of sf interest is a ...
Tarzan, Deloris Lehman
Pseudonym of US art critic and author Deloris Tarzan Ament (1934- ), active from around 1970 in Seattle, Washington; she also writes as by Winifred Concannon. Her sf novel Red Tide (1975) with D D Chapman, which is initially set in a research station Under the Sea, describes the disastrous Ecological consequences of sudden anomalies in the growth of the eponymous ...
Anders, Charlie Jane
(1969- ) US editor, performance artist and author, her early stories being signed Charles Anders, then Charlie Anders. She began to publish work of genre interest with "Skin Switch" in Maelstrom Speculative Fiction for January 1999 as Charles Anders; her shorter work includes The Fermi Paradox Is Our Business Model (11 August 2010 Tor.com; 2011 ebook), Six Months, Three Days (June 2011 ...
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 ...