SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 18 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 ...
Swem, Charles Lee
(1893-1956) US journalist and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Mississippi Bearcat" in All-Story Weekly (see The All-Story) for 17 January 1920. He is of some sf interest for Werewolf (1928) (see Werewolves) which depicts the transformation of a normal human into a Supernatural Creature, seemingly through the use of a mysterious ...
Janáček, Leoš
(1854-1928) Czech composer. His four-act opera Výlet pana Broučka do XV. stolet a do Měsíce ["The Excursions of Mr. Brouček to the Moon and to the 15th Century "] (1920) is as jaunty and unrealistic a piece of sf as its title suggests. Janáček's opera Věc Makropulos (1926, translated into English variously as "The Makropulos Affair" and "The Makropulos Case") adapts Karel Čapek's novel ...
Biro, Val
Working name of Hungarian-born illustrator and author Balint Stephen Biro (1921-2014), in the UK from 1939 until his death. During his prolific career as a book illustrator, which began in the early 1940s – his woodcut illustrations for Paul Tabori's Private Gallery (coll 1944) are already extremely accomplished – he executed a number of covers for sf and fantasy books, though never in a style that demonstrated any deep affinity for the ...
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 ...