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 ...
Boyczuk, Robert
(1956- ) Canadian teacher of computer science and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Jazz Fantasia" in On Spec for Winter 1993, most of his subsequent work being horror, much of it (including his first story under the vt "Jazz Threnody") being assembled as Horror Story and Other Horror Stories (coll 2009). He is of sf interest primarily for Nexus (2004 ebook; vt Nexus: Ascension ...
Cho, Zen
(1986- ) Malaysian author now resident in the UK, where she practices as a solicitor. She began publishing short fiction with "The Guest" in Expanded Horizons for November 2010, making her first professional sale in the following year with "起狮，行礼" ["Rising Lion – The Lion Bows"] in Strange Horizons for 21 March 2011. / Cho's first foray into longer ...
Gleig, Charles
(1862-1945) UK author active until at least 1927, most frequently the author of Young Adult tales set in various departments of the navy, which (for their era) are unusually attentive to the condition of working soldiers. This solicitude is articulated in The "Bogus Surveyor"; Or, a Short History of a Peculiar People (1894 chap) as by Whitewash, the Surveyor's Friend, which details the plight of sailors in the Nautical Survey Service, and in his sf ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...