SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 19 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 ...
Carmichael, Claire
(1940-2022) Australian author resident in the USA from the mid 1990s, best known, under her pseudonym Clair McNab, for the Carol Ashton policiers, the Denise Cleever intelligence thrillers, and for the Kylie Kendall private eye tales set in Los Angeles. Her Young Adult sf, under her own name, is less familiar. The Virtual Realities Trilogy – comprising Virtual Realities (1992), Cybersaur (1993) and ...
Marley, Louise
(1952- ) US musician and author who has also written as by Toby Bishop, Cate Campbell and Louisa Morgan, the Campbell pseudonym being used for historical romances [not listed below]; she began to publish work of genre interest with "Body and Blood" in Divine Realms (anth 1998) edited by Susan MacGregor, which was assembled with other early work as Absalom's Mother & Other Stories (coll 2007). Much of her work is fantasy and romance, though ...
Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature
Japanese animated tv film (1984). Original title Daishizen no Majū Bagi; vt Baghi. Tezuka Productions. Created, directed and written by Osamu Tezuka. Voice cast includes Masako Ikeda, Kazuhiko Inoue, Saeko Shimazu and Kosei Tomita. 85 minutes. Colour. / In the South American Republic of Monica, Ryosuke Ishigami (Inoue) awaits the Monster who killed his mother. Whilst doing so, he tells his story to a ...
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 ...