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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 ...
Hu-Man
French film (1975). Romantique Films, Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française, Institut national de l'audiovisuel, Filmologies. Directed by Jérôme Laperrousaz. Written by Jérôme Laperrousaz, André Roullan and Guillaume Laperrousaz, with the collaboration of Francis Guilbert. Cast includes Jeanne Moreau, Terence Stamp, Agnès Stevenin and Frederik von Pallandt. 105 minutes. Colour. / ...
Matter Transmission
The matter transmitter is one of sf's many facilitating devices for Transportation: a hypothetical machine which is not rationally plausible in terms of known science (at least at any macroscopic scale) but which is very convenient for certain narrative purposes (see Imaginary Science). By virtue of an obvious play on words, matter transmitters were sometimes called "transmats" – as in Lan ...
Lindelof, O J S
(1852-1917) US author of A Trip to the North Pole; Or, the Discovery of the Ten Tribes, as Found in the Arctic Ocean (1903), a Lost Race tale in which (as per subtitle) the Lost Tribes of Israel are discovered inhabiting an Archipelago (see also Islands) at the North Pole, where they have become beautiful of countenance and possessed of advanced Technology; ...
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 ...