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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
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
Thompson, E P
(1924-1993) UK historian and author, father of Kate Thompson; his highly articulate Marxist interpretation of the last centuries of UK history is best expressed in The Making of the English Working Class (1963). His studies of William Morris – William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary (1955) and The Communism of William Morris (1965 chap) – are of sf interest; his only ...
Corey, Paul
(1903-1992) US reporter and author in various genres, active from as early as 1934 with "Their Forefathers Were Presidents" for Story, though his first work of genre interest, "Operation Survival" for New Worlds, did not appear until December 1962. Most of his early novels are set on farms in the US Middle West; the title of one of them, Acres of Antaeus (1946), deceptively suggests sf content; The Little Jeep (1946 chap) is a ...
Carter, Stephen L
(1954- ) US lawyer and author, who also writes as by A L Shields; much of his work is nonfiction, arguing a moderate Christian take on political and cultural matters. Most of his novels are thrillers, though The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln (2012) is an Alternate History tale whose Jonbar Point – Lincoln survives an assassination attempt in 1865 – leads into a rancorous ...
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 ...