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Friday 16 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 14 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 ...
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 ...
Monsters of the Movies
Letter-size Cinema magazine printed on newsprint-quality paper. Published by Curtis Magazines. Nine issues, June 1974 to August 1975; perfect-bound until #5, then saddle-stapled until #8, reverting to perfect binding for the final edition. Editors were Roy Thomas and Jim Harmon. / Attempting to exploit the renewed interest in Horror, and to imitate ...
Adrian, Chris
(1970- ) US medical doctor and author who began publishing short fiction in 1997, some of it of interest as demonstrations of his instinct for Equipoise, in terms of which his partially fantasticated renderings of the fall of the Twin Towers (or 9/11) (see New York) are seen sub specie aeternitatis; much of this material has been assembled as A Better Angel: Stories (coll 2008). His first ...
Hitchcock, Raymond
(1922-1992) Indian-born UK author and cartoonist whose Percy books – Percy (1969) – filmed as Percy (1971) – and Percy's Progress (1972) – filmed as Percy's Progress (1974) – explored the comedy potential of penis transplantation as the organ's new owner is "led" to hunt down his new penis's previous insertion events. Venus 13: A Cautionary Space Tale (1972) also deals lightly with ...
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 ...