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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 ...
Boy and His Dog, A
Film (1975). LQJaf Productions. Directed by L Q Jones. Written by Jones and Moore, based on "A Boy and His Dog" (April 1969 New Worlds) by Harlan Ellison, who began but found himself unable to complete the script. Cast includes Susanne Benton, Don Johnson, Tim McIntire (as the dog's voice), Alvy Moore and Jason Robards. 91 minutes. Colour. / Set in 2024 CE, Post-Holocaust, this ...
Incident at Raven's Gate
Australian film (1988; vt Encounter at Raven's Gate). Hemdale. Directed by Rolf de Heer. Written by Marc Rosenberg, de Heer. Cast includes Vince Gil, Celin Griffen, Saturday Rosenberg, Ritchie Singer and Steven Vidler. 89 minutes. Colour. / Australian cinema has produced a number of under-appreciated genre items, such as The Last Wave (1977) and Razorback (1984). This is another, a ...
Fantasy Modeling
Letter-size saddle-stapled magazine. Six quarterly issues Fall 1980 to Winter 1981 from O'Quinn Publishing. Editor: unknown. / This short-lived companion to Cinemagic specialized in how-to articles on building sf, fantasy and Sword and Sorcery hobby kits and dioramas, together with some material on Games. Several artists contributed, by far the best-known being Boris ...
Infinite Ryvius
Japanese animated tv series (1999-2000; vt Mugen no Ryvius). Produced by Sunrise. Directed by Gorou Taniguchi; written by Yosuke Kuroda. Music by Katsuhisa Hattori. Voiced by Tetsu Shiratori, Soichiro Hoshi and Houko Kuwashima. 26 25-minute episodes. Colour. / Infinite Ryvius is set in 2225 CE after humanity has colonized many bodies of the Solar System, even though a solar ...
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 ...