SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 22 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 19 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 ...
Invisible Man, The
1. Film (1933). Universal. Directed by James Whale. Cast includes with small roles for Walter Brennan, John Carradine, E E Clive, William Harrigan, Una O'Connor, Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart and Henry Travers. Written by R C Sherriff and Philip Wylie, based on The Invisible Man (1897) by H G Wells. 71 minutes. Black and white. / As in ...
Frank R Paul Award
An sf art award named in memory of Frank R Paul and administered by Ken "Khen" Moore (?1943-2009) and other committee members of the Nashville, Tennessee, Convention Kubla-Khan on behalf of the Nashville Science Fiction Association from 1976 to 1996; each winner also served as the convention's Artist Guest of Honour. The award is noteworthy for the general distinction of its recipients. The physical trophies, made by Moore, took ...
Del Martia, Astron
A House Name invented by publisher Stephen Frances for his second publishing house, the self-named S D Frances, and used there by John Russell Fearn on The Trembling World (1949), in which relics of an ancient Alien civilization are found in a valley of stone statues in Brazil; it is the best of the Del Martia titles. The name was then sold on to ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...