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.
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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 ...
M.A.N.T.I.S.
US tv series (1994-1995). Wilbur Force Productions/Renaissance Pictures/Universal Television for Fox Television Network. Created by Sam Hamm and Sam Raimi. Produced by Paris Qualles, Tim Iacofano, and David Roessell. Directors included Cliff Bole, Rob Bowman, Michael Caffey, and Les Landau. Writers included Coleman Luck, Brad Markowitz, Qualles, Bryce Zabel, Mark Scott Zicree. Cast includes Galyn Gorg, Carl Lumbly, Roger Rees and Andrew J Robinson. One ...
Bradbury, Will
Working name of US author Wilbury Bradbury (? - ) who has published nonfiction under his full name, including Into the Unknown (1981), which concerns itself with paranormal phenomena. His sf novel The God Cell (1976) is a Horror in SF tale in the course of which Mutant animals, whose Intelligence has been abnormally magnified by a ...
Miller, George
(1945- ) Australian film-maker (his Greek parents changed their name from Miliotis soon after his birth). After a satirical short film, A History of Violence in the Cinema, Part One (1975), Miller made an international impact with Mad Max (1979), a Near-Future cop/vigilante car-chase movie that introduced Mel Gibson to stardom as a leather-clad highway patrolman in an anarchic ...
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 ...