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 ...
ALF
US tv series (1986-1990). Warner Bros TV for NBC. Created by Paul Fusco and Ed Weinberger. Produced by Tom Patchett. Writers include Fusco, Patchett. Directors include Fusco, Patchett, Peter Bonerz. 25 minutes per episode. Colour. / ALF, an "alien life form" – in the line of extraterrestrial descent from My Favorite Martian and Mork in Mork & Mindy, though also influenced heavily by ...
Trigun
Japanese animated tv series (1998). Original title Toraigan. Based on the Manga by Yasuhiro Nightow. Madhouse. Directed by Satoshi Nishimura. Written by Yōsuke Kuroda. Voice cast includes Tohru Furusawa, Sho Hayami, Aya Hisakawa, Masaya Onosaka, Hiromi Tsuru and Satsuki Yukino. 26 25-minute episodes. Colour. / With red trenchcoat, shaving-brush hair, Lennon glasses and the motto "Love and ...
Smith, Stephanie A
(1959- ) US academic and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Blue Heart" in Asimov's for November 1982, and whose first novels – the Snow-Eyes sequence comprising Snow-Eyes (1985) and The Boy Who Was Thrown Away (1987) – were Planetary Romances for the Young Adult market. The protagonist of the first ...
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 ...