SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 23 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 ...
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 ...
Döblin, Alfred
(1878-1957) German physician and author who began publishing before World War One, in which he served as a physician; in exile because of his Jewish background 1933-1945. Die Ermordung Einer Butterblume und andere Erzählungen ["The Murder of a Buttercup"] (coll 1913; exp 1962; trans Damion Searles as Bright Magic 2017) assembles hectic fantasies and parables, some powerful, including the title ...
Blair, John
(1961- ) US author and poet who began publishing sf with A Landscape of Darkness (1990), an sf adventure in which a mercenary on a colony planet must pit himself against an Alien who wears the guise of a Japanese warrior. Though a plot of this sort offers many opportunities for action routines, Blair generally avoids the temptation. His second novel, Bright Angel (1992), similarly concentrates upon the complex ...
Zito, V M
(? - ) US advertising agency executive and author of The Return Man (2012), a Near Future Post-Holocaust novel set in the Evacuated States of western America four years after the now traditional Zombie holocaust has split America apart: gonzo zombies out West, which has become a no-man's-land, while the Safe States back East have been crushed into ...
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 ...