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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.
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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 ...
LeBlanc, Maurice
(1864-1941) French author in various genres, though after he began the Arsène Lupin sequence, with "L'Arrestation d'Arsène Lupin" ["The Arrest of Arsène Lupin"] (15 July 1905 Je Sais Tout), he focused most of his energies on his raffish, inexplicably elusive gentleman thief and frustrator of "Herlock Sholmes" or "Holmlock Shears" (these and other names were used in attempts to placate Arthur Conan Doyle). In later ...
Scott, Donna
(1973- ) Working name of Donna Bond, a UK short story author, poet, stand-up comedian and editor who is a director, and former chair (2013-2019), of the British Science Fiction Association. She has worked as contributor, proofreader and editor for several Small Presses, with her first genre story "Fools Gold" appearing in Under the Rose (anth ...
Britto García, Luis
(1940- ) Venezuelan author, playwright and essayist. His fiction has been honoured twice with the Casa de Las Américas prize, for his works Rajatabla ["Strictly"] (coll 1970) and Abrapalabra [wordplay with abracadabra, can be literally translated as "Open Word"] (1980). In 2002 he was the winner of Venezuela's national prize for literature, given as a lifetime achievement award. In 2005 he received the ...
Time in Reverse
The notion of Time running backwards, with effects preceding causes, is both strongly counter-intuitive and fascinatingly easy to imagine: playing a movie in reverse is among the oldest and most familiar of special effects. The Time Traveller in H G Wells's The Time Machine (1895) sees his housekeeper apparently moving backwards through the room during the final moments of his return journey from the future. Still earlier ...
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 ...