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Tuesday 20 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
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
Hanna-Barbera
Animation studio founded by William Hanna (1910-2001) and Joseph Barbera (1911-2006) in 1957 (initially as H-B Enterprises), following the closure of the MGM cartoon studio for which they had created the classic Cat versus Mouse series Tom & Jerry (1940-current). The studio was bought by Taft Broadcasting in 1966, then by Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) in 1991, when Barbera and Hanna moved from being company heads to ...
Stewart, Ritson
(? - ) UK author who, with Stanley Stewart (their relationship, along with everything else about them, is unknown), published The Professor's Last Experiment (1888), in which a scientifically superior Alien from Mars arrives on Earth but is captured by a vivisectionist, who – inspired by a misapprehension of the workings of Evolution – chops off the ...
Penrice, Arthur
Pseudonym of UK author George Theodosius Boughton Kyngdon (1821-1916). The narrator of Skyward and Earthward (1875), whose name is Arthur Penrice, travels to the Moon in an advanced Balloon, where he discovers a race of Telepaths living in caves; Penrice then travels to Mars, also inhabited. The second half of the tale is set tamely back on Earth. [JC]
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...