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
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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 ...
Dubina, Peter
(1940-1990) Czech-born author, in Germany after 1945, who also wrote as by R F Garner and Joh Kirby, concentrating on Westerns for most of his career; of sf interest is Eintscheidung im Weltraum (1973; trans Patricia Crampton as Decision in Space 1976), in which three human Scientists are abducted by a UFO and tricked into believing in the ...
Byatt, Henry
(?1855-1934) UK playwright and author, born Harry Byatt Robinson, which he shortened by deed poll to Harry Byatt in 1900; little is known of him beyond his published works, which include meretricious dramas set to music like The Golden Age; or, Pierrot's Sacrifice: An Original Idyllic Musical Play (1898 chap), which sentimentally transposes Pierrot into the Golden Age of a much earlier tradition, or The Testament of Judas (1908), a fantasy about Judas Iscariot. ...
Mamatas, Nick
(1972- ) US author much of whose work has been horror or fantasy, of interest not only for his sf but for an assured and adventurous mixing of genres (see Equipoise), often couched as Satire, throughout his career to date; it is at times not easy – nor perhaps very useful – to fix particular tales into a safe generic framework, though his creative interest in H P ...
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 ...