SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 13 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 12 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 ...
Monster World
1. Letter-size Cinema Magazine in perfect-bound format, printed on newsprint-quality paper. Publisher: Warren Publishing Editor: Forrest J Ackerman. Ten issues, November 1964 to September 1966. Publication was nominally bimonthly but in fact sporadic. / Monster World was an attempt at a companion title to ...
Mork & Mindy
US tv series (1978-1982). Miller-Milkis Productions, Henderson Productions, Paramount Television/ABC. Created by Garry K Marshall, Dale McRaven and Joe Gauberg. Produced by Marshall. Writers include McRaven, Bruce Johnson, April Kelly, Ed Scharlach and Tom Tenowich. Directors include Bob Claver and Howard Storm. Cast (highly selected) includes Pam Dawber, Ralph James (voice), Conrad Janis, Elizabeth Kerr, Tom Poston, Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters. One 50-minute pilot episode ...
Tracy, Louis
(1863-1928) Irish-born UK journalist and author, born Patrick Joseph Treacy, in UK from early childhood, active from the early 1880s. He almost certainly changed his name legally before 1888; his birth name and place of birth have been examined by Steve Holland in his Bear Alley blog [see links below]. Tracy is best remembered for The Final War: A Story of the Great Betrayal (28 December 1895-1 August 1896 ...
Anonymous
This entry records those relatively few Anonymous SF Authors who did not use a pseudonym and whose identity has never been established. The ordering below is first chronological by year of first publication, then alphabetical by title. / 1. Unidentified author of A Voyage to the World in the Centre of the Earth (1755) [for full title see Checklist directly below], a Proto SF tale which describes a ...
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 ...