SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 24 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 ...
Clare, Cassandra
Pseudonym of Iranian-born author Judith Rumelt (1973- ), in the US from an early age, who signed as Cassandra Claire for early fan fiction; she began to publish work of genre interest with "The Girl's Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord" in Turn the Other Chick (anth 2004) edited by Esther Friesner, but soon focused on longer book-length titles. She is best-known for two linked series of ...
Cunningham, Beall
Working name of Dorothy Beall Cunningham (? -?), author of Wide White Page (1936), a tale featuring a modern Utopia founded in the Antarctic whose all-male equilibrium is upset by the arrival of a woman (see Women in SF); she is duly asked to leave. Cunningham also published at least three nonfantastic novels under her full name. She was alive in 1970. [DRL]
McIntyre, Angus
(? - ) UK author, now in USA, who began to publish work of genre interest with "Someone to Watch Over Me" in Black Candles: Surveillance for 2015. His first novel, The Warrior Within (2018), is a Planetary Romance set in an indefinite but perhaps rather distant future, on a long-inhabited world, where a colourful, complex but constrained culture seems to flourish, under the sway of an ornate but ...
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 ...