SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 13 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 12 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 ...
de Chair, Somerset
(1911-1995) UK Conservative politician, first elected to Parliament in 1934; his career ended in 1950 after a succession of (heterosexual) scandals. At the start of his long writing career, he published two tracts, The Impending Storm (1930), which predicted World War Two, and Divided Europe (1931), which predicted a Communist takeover of Eastern Europe; Peter Public: A Play in Three Acts (1932) as by the Hon Member ...
Skinner, B F
Working name of Burrhus Frederick Skinner (1904-1990), US psychologist and author whose vehemently argued (and as vigorously refuted) brand of behaviourism dominated that version of Psychology for many years in America, and provides the basic tenets for his one published work of fiction, Walden Two (1948), which depicts a Utopia whose inhabitants grow up as successful experiments in behavioural engineering on lines ...
Sword, The
US rock band formed in Austin, Texas in 2004, active until 2022. Initially lumped in with stoner rock bands of the period, by the time of their concept album Warp Riders (2010) they had moved in a more traditional heavy metal direction. This spirited but somewhat unvarying record, with good riffs and monotonous vocals, is set on the fictional planet Acheron, and tells of the archer Ereth, who is banished from his tribe, discovers a mysterious orb, meets various archetypal figures ...
Koebel, W H
(1872-1923) UK author of The Singular Republic (1908), which describes a benevolent South American Utopia known as Neuvonie, where romance (and decimal currency) flourish, until fault lines in its trading relations with the rest of the world instigate a revolution, ending the experiment. [JC]
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 ...