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 ...
Lee, Mary Soon
(1965- ) UK-born author and poet with an MA in mathematics from Cambridge University; currently in the US as a naturalized citizen. She began to publish work of genre interest with "Gift" in Strange Days magazine for Fall 1992. Her first book-length publication was the fantasy collection Winter Shadows and Other Tales (coll 2001), followed by the sf collection Ebb Tides and Other Tales (coll 2002); the latter includes work first ...
Kyle, David A
(1919-2016) US sf fan, illustrator, owner of several radio stations, publisher and author. Kyle was a member of First Fandom, having been active in the field since 1933. Until the 1970s his writing activities were only occasional, though his first published sf was "Golden Nemesis" – which he also illustrated – in Stirring Science Stories for February 1941. (He had in fact sold this five years earlier and ...
de Chomón, Segundo
(1871-1929) Spanish/Catalan (see Catalan SF) silent film director, cinematographer and writer who worked on many films (see Cinema) for the French film company Pathé Frères. Whilst in Spain he made Gulliver en el país de los gigantes (1903; vt Gulliver in the Land of Giants) – not to be confused with Georges Méliès's ...
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 ...