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 ...
About, Edmond
(1828-1885) French dramatist, journalist, author of several novels of sf interest, though the first of these, Le Cas de M. Guérin ["The Case of Mr Guérin"] (1860) – about a pregnant man – has not appeared in English. He is best-known for L'Homme à l'Oreille Cassée (1862 2vols; trans anon as The Man with the Broken Ear 1864; new trans Henry Holt 1867; new trans J E Maitland, vt Colonel Fougas' Mistake ...
Nielsen, Terese
(1966- ) American artist, her name sometimes misspelled as Therese, the ex-wife of artist Cliff Nielsen. After completing her training with a BFA degree from Pasadena's prestigious Art Center College of Design in 1991, she began doing artwork for comic books and gaming; and work related to role-playing games like Magic: The Gathering, rather than book covers, has remained her main source of income. Her work for comic books includes ...
Naval Officer, A
Pseudonym of the unidentified UK author (? - ) of Great Was the Fall (1912), who signs the Introduction as A H M; a Near Future tale on Battle of Dorking lines, including a sneak Invasion by Germany, which has taken advantage of Britain's unpreparedness. [JC]
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 ...