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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 ...
Pace, Sue
(? - ) US author of The Last Oasis (1993), a Young Adult tale set in a Near Future world that has suffered calamitous Climate Change after long decades of environmental destruction; the young protagonists flee their precarious Keep – a shopping mall in Portland, Oregon – in the direction of Idaho, where the ...
Bretnor, Reginald
(1911-1992) US author and anthologist, born Alfred Reginald Kahn – he changed his name legally to Bretnor after World War Two – in Vladivostok, Siberia, but resident in the US from 1920; active after World War Two in a number of genres as an author of both fiction and nonfiction. His interest in military theory, which first generated articles and Decisive Warfare (1969), later inspired the Future at War series of anthologies: ...
Ward, Don
(1911-1984) US editor, chiefly as a freelance but long associated with Dell Books, and author of H. Rider Haggard's She: The Story Retold (1949), which as conveyed by the title is a retelling of She: A History of Adventure (2 October 1886-8 January 1887 The Graphic; cut 1886; full text 1887) by H Rider Haggard. He collaborated with Theodore Sturgeon on some Western tales which ...
Hill, William Boyle
(circa 1861-1953) Irish author, resident in Australia, whose novel A New Earth and a New Heaven (1936) is of exceedingly moderate sf interest for its advocacy of a garden-city subtopian future (see City), but which comes somewhat to life on its protagonists' visit to a Lost World – in the heart of Australia – whose inhabitants are in touch with Mars. [JC]
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...