SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 19 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 ...
Dogs
The domestic dog may perhaps seem less science-fictional than the Cat, lacking the feline's aloofness and suggestion of the Alien; but humanity's traditional companion inevitably features in much sf. Indeed dogs are the Secret Masters of the world in "Into Your Tent I'll Creep" (September 1957 Astounding) by Eric Frank Russell, and the dog-human ...
Ryner, Han
Pseudonym of Algerian-born French philosopher and author Jacques Élie Henri Ambroise Ner (1861-1938), which he adopted in 1898, after having published fairly widely under his own name. His philosophical position, as articulated in many articles and books, combined epicurean stoicism about the purpose of life with anarchist political views which led to his taking a pacifist stand in World War One, a position reflected in Les Pacifiques ["The ...
Home-Gall, Edward R
(1897-1974) UK author, son of William Benjamin Home-Gall; in active service during World War One, enlisting under-age and at Gallipoli in 1915; he was the most prolific of all authors of work for the Boys' Papers after Frank Richards (usual pseudonym of Charles Hamilton [1876-1961]), producing an estimated 35 million words; it is not known how much of his magazine work, much of it ...
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 ...