SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 20 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
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
McKeone, Lee
(1937-2007) US author of the Ghoster sequence of Space Operas – Ghoster (1988), Backblast (1989) and Starfire Down (1991) – set in undemanding interstellar venues where human entrepreneurs may comically flourish. McKeone subsequently concentrated on Ties, including the Birthright sequence tied to the Role Playing Game and signed ...
Maddox, Tom
Working name of US author and academic Daniel Thomas Maddox (1945-2022), who began publishing polished short stories with "The Mind Like a Strange Balloon" in Omni for June 1985. This introduces characters who reappear in his only novel, Halo (1991), which moves from a Cyberpunk Earth to a Space Habitat, engaging en route in an intense contemplation of the nature of artificial intelligence ...
Pellegrino, Charles R
(1953- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Oh, Miranda!" with George Zebrowski, in F&SF for September 1991. His first novel, Flying to Valhalla (1993), describes the first successful attempt at interstellar flight, accomplished through the Invention of an Antimatter drive. His second, The Killing Star ...
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 ...