SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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 ...
Taylor, Catherine
(1958- ) Canadian author not to be confused with several other authors named Catherine Taylor in whose Near Future Young Adult Dystopian novel Thirst (2005) a girl on crutches leaves her City to find a new world, which she does. [JC]
Dixon, Roger
(1930-1983) UK accountant and author, who also wrote as by Charles Lewis and (almost certainly) John Christian; his epic adventure about humankind's future fate, Noah II (1970; rev 1975), is based on a story idea by Dixon and his agent, Basil Bova, and began the aborted Quest series. Five Gates to Armageddon (1975) as by John Christian is a Near Future thriller involving a new Weapon in the ...
Niffenegger, Audrey
(1963- ) US artist and author whose first full-length prose fiction, The Time-Traveler's Wife (2003), which was filmed as The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) and later made into a Television series as The Time Traveler's Wife (2022 6 episodes) by showrunner Steven Moffat, carries its protagonist willy-nilly through a number of ...
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 ...