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Wednesday 14 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 14 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 ...
Enright, D J
(1920-2002) UK poet, academic, critic and author; he was given an OBE in 1991. Most of his work has no fantastic content, though Heaven Knows Where (1957) Satirizes with a fairly soft brush the attempts of some British academics to construct a Utopia in an Island venue. Of more direct interest is the Atlantis series of Young Adult novels – ...
Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man
Film (1951). Universal International Pictures. Directed by Charles Lamont. Screenplay by John Grant, Robert Lees and Frederic I Rinaldo, very loosely based on The Invisible Man (1897) by H G Wells. Cast includes Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Nancy Guild, Arthur Franz. 82 minutes. Black and white. / Boxer Tommy Nelson (Franz) is framed for the murder of a boxing promoter when he refuses to throw a bout as ordered by local gangsters. Knowing that ...
Potocki, Jan
(1761-1815) Polish military engineer, ethnologist, linguist, traveller and author whose first stories – which show the influences of Arabian Fantasy [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] – appeared in the 1780s, embedded into his travel books. He is best-known for Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse ["The Manuscript Found at Saragossa"], a complex text whose publication history is so convoluted ...
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 ...