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 ...
Pfeil, Donald J
(1937-1989) US author whose Voyage to a Forgotten Sun (1975), Through the Reality Warp (1976) and Look Back to Earth (1977) as Don Pfeil were Young Adult deliberately (and enjoyably) outmoded Space-Opera idiom. Under the House Name William Arrow he wrote Return to the Planet of the Apes 2: Escape from Terror Lagoon ...
Resident Evil
Videogame (1996; vt Biohazard in Japan). Capcom. Designed by Shinji Mikami. Platforms: PS1 (1996); Saturn, Win (1997); rev GC (2002); rev vt Resident Evil: Deadly Silence NDS (2006); rev Wii (2008). / Resident Evil was not the first game that could be categorized as Survival Horror, but it was the game that codified the form. The gameplay focuses on puzzle ...
Fantastic Four
Film (2005). Twentieth Century Fox/Constantin Film/Marvel Enterprises. Directed by Tim Story. Written by Mark Frost, Michael France, based on the Marvel Comic by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Cast includes Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans, Ioan Gruffudd and Julian McMahon. 105 minutes. Colour. / While aboard a ...
Ferret
(? - ) Pseudonym of the artist and illustrator Tim MacNamara, sometimes referred to as Tim Ferret. He was a regular contributor to New Pathways and Science Fiction Eye. In collaboration with K W Jeter he reportedly wrote the bulk of Alligator Alley (1989) as by Mink Mole and Dr Adder. In this novel "Mink Mole", the metamorphic protagonist ...
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 ...