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.
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 ...
Larkin, Bob
(1949- ) US artist who from the early 1970s painted many covers for Comics, magazines and paperbacks, the latter including several Marvel Comics paperback collections of graphic material; he has also been credited, perhaps by accident, as Robert Larkin. His characteristic punchy designs with strong colours and bold central figures were well suited to the 1970s/1980s Bantam paperback reissues of the ...
Pandemic [game]
Board Game (2007). Z-Man Games. Designed by Matt Leacock. / Pandemic is a cooperative board game for 2-4 players. Players must work together in order to prevent the Pandemic outbreak of four simultaneous diseases in hotspots around the world by travelling to international locations and fighting the contagion using their individual abilities. This early cooperative strategy board game is a ...
Ariel: The Book of Fantasy
Large-letter-size US magazine/anthology (12 x 9 in; about 305 x 230 mm), only the first issue (Autumn 1976) of which is unequivocally designated a magazine, and was made up almost exclusively of original material; the three remaining issues or volumes (1977, April and October 1978) typically presented reprint stories with new illustrations. All four were edited by Thomas Durwood. Ariel was lavishly produced on glossy paper, emphasizing fantastic art and ...
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 ...