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 ...
Byrne, Brendan C
(1982- ) US author who first began publishing work of genre interest with "Donald Asshole and Los Elementos de Rock" (Spring/Summer 2008 Flurb), followed by "Wasps/Spiders" (Fall/Winter 2010 Flurb), both published in a journal mentored and shaped by Rudy Rucker. A novella, The Showing of the Instruments (2011), and "Human Child" (2014 Flapperhouse) are tales of ...
Hughes, Rian
(1963- ) UK Comics and Graphic Novel illustrator, graphic designer, typographer and author, active from the early 1980s, his first graphic novel being The Science Service (graph 1987) with John Freeman; some of his early work was for sf comics like 2000 AD and Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future. / Hughes is perhaps ...
Hooker, Ruth
(1920-1998) US author of books for Young Adult readers and younger children, whose Kennaquhair (1976) follows six children who leave a Ruined Earth urban environment and find a pastoral enclave, where a guru named Olmun [ie Old Man] teaches them how to adjust with loving kindness to the new world. [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 ...