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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.
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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 ...
Sweden
Modernity, and with it science fiction, came very late to Sweden. The country consists of two thirds of a large isthmus at the northwest edge of Europe, in the north reaching well into the Polar circle. The Swedish population in 1500 is estimated at around 700,000; the capital, Stockholm, boasted some 6000 inhabitants. In 1700, the population had reached 1.5 million; in 1900 slightly over 5.1 million. Until the early twentieth century, Sweden was fundamentally an agrarian society. From 1611 ...
Avery, Anne
Pseudonym of US author Anne Holmberg (1938- ), mostly of historical romances under several names, also including Kate Holmes and Anne Woodward. She is of sf interest for several romantic Space Operas, including A Distant Star (1993), in which a colony planet at the end of the Long Night after empire is under observation pending its return to galactic civilization; All's Fair ...
Foster, W Bert
(1869-1929) US author who specialized in the Dime Novel and several of whose Western tales were made into silent films; his sf of most interest – like "At Land's End" (May-November 1901 Argosy), a Near Future tale in which the Arctic is explored by airplane; and "When Time Slipped a Cog" (January-May 1905 All-Story), which combines ...
Son of Kong
Film (1933). RKO. Directed by Ernest B Schoedsack. Written by Ruth Rose. Cast includes Robert Armstrong, Noble Johnson, Helen Mack and Frank Reicher. 70 minutes. Black and white. / This film was made immediately after King Kong (1933) as a small-scale sequel. The hero returns to Skull Island and discovers Kong's son "Little Kong", a 20ft (6m) white ape with all the characteristics of a friendly puppy. Various prehistoric ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...