SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 16 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 14 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 ...
Elwood, Roger
(1943-2007) US author and editor who published a large amount of nonfiction from about 1960, and began his main career, as editor, with a number of reprint Anthologies in the 1960s – though in fact those published under his own name were ghost-edited by Sam Moskowitz; those ostensibly in collaboration with Moskowitz or Vic Ghidalia were packaged by Elwood but not edited by him. Another ...
Dehan, Richard
Pseudonym of Irish-born journalist, cartoonist, playwright, actor and author Clotilde Augusta Inez Maria Graves (1863-1932), in UK from around 1870; active from about 1884, her first plays being written later in that decade, as Clotilde Graves. Beginning with The Dop Doctor (1910), she wrote as by Richard Dehan; reprints of her work, including some titles originally published as Graves, continue to use the pseudonym. Of sf interest in Off Sandy Hook and Other Stories (coll ...
Johnston, Bryan
(? - ) US screenwriter, producer and author; his sf novel Death Warrant (2022) unveils an homage to Robert Sheckley's The Tenth Victim (full version 1966) through its depiction of a young woman who agrees to be killed on a reality show (see Media Landscape; Television), but without knowing that a ...
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 ...