SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 15 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.
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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 ...
Macnee, Patrick
(1922-2015) UK actor (a US citizen from 1982) best known for playing the supremely suave, stylish and very British secret agent John Steed who with a succession of tough but glamorous female partners is pitted against numerous sf threats and ploys in The Avengers (1961-1969) and its successor The New Avengers (1976-1977). He receives sole cover credit for the Avengers Ties Deadline (1965) ...
Reid, Ruthanne
(? - ) US author whose Science Fantasy novel The Sundered (2012) is set on a planet, which the reader suspects may well be a deeply Ruined Earth, nearly covered by poisonous black water where creatures with Magic powers live. The Ecology of this world is inimical to its surviving human population, as is discovered. ...
King, Louis Magrath
(1886-1949) China-born UK diplomat, whose work in the British Consular Office took him to the China-Tibet borderlands, and author whose By Tophet Flare: A Tale of Adventure on the Chinese Frontier of Tibet (1937; vt The Warden of the Marches: A Tale of the Chinese Frontier of Tibet 1938), reflecting his travels, describes the discovery of a Lost Race is deep within the Inner Asian Frontier of China. [JC]
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 ...