SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 14 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 14 January 2026
Sponsor of the day: Ted Chiang
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 ...
Noon, Jeff
(1957- ) UK author whose first publications as an sf writer comprise the Vurt sequence comprising Vurt (1993; exp as coll 2013), Pollen (1995), Automated Alice (1996) and Nymphomation (1997), all set in various versions of a Near-Future Manchester irradiated by Cyberpunk marriages of the human and non-human, all tales being told in a ...
Stratton, Chris
(? - ) Author of the Tie Change of Mind (1969), novelizing the film Change of Mind (1969). This explores of Race in SF through Identity Transfer when a privileged white lawyer's brain is transplanted into a Black man's body. [DRL] see also: Psychology. /
Incredibles, The
Animated film (2004). Disney/Pixar Animation Studios. Written and directed by Brad Bird. 120 minutes. Cast includes Maeve Andrews, Bird, Spencer Fox, Eli Fucile, Holly Hunter, Samuel L Jackson, Jason Lee, Craig T Nelson and Sarah Vowell. Colour. / Superhero Bob Parr (Nelson), known as Mr Incredible, is forced into early retirement – along with his colleagues – by lawsuits over the collateral damage of his crime-fighting heroics. Fifteen ...
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 ...