SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 18 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 ...
Eldershaw, M Barnard
Collaborative pseudonym used by Australian authors and critics Marjorie Faith Barnard (1897-1987) and Flora Sydney Patricia Eldershaw (1897-1956) for four well-regarded mainstream novels 1929-1937; nearly all the writing was done by Barnard – who had published a solo book as early as 1920 – with Eldershaw being the critical editorial eye. Barnard long claimed that a fifth novel, also published as by M Barnard Eldershaw and the most distinguished work under this pseudonym, was by her ...
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
US animated tv series (2023-current). Cinema Gypsy Productions, Disney Television Animation (see Disney on Television), Marvel Animation. Based on the Marvel Comics characters created by Brandon Montclare, Amy Reeder and Natacha Bustos (Moon Girl) and Jack Kirby (Devil Dinosaur). Developed by Jeffrey M. Howard, Kate Kondell and Steve Loter. Directors include Trey Buongiorno and ...
Gravity
The force of gravity is the most inescapable and unvarying fact of terrestrial life, and when writers first sent characters into Spaceships and on to other planets the phenomenon of low gravity, or of no gravity at all, figured prominently among the wonders of space. Many early authors did not realize that complete weightlessness is a consequence of free fall, but this soon became a fact to be taken for granted in describing ...
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 ...